Rio and the £45k choc ice-Social media guidelines and the game’s growing corporate culture .

Rio Ferdinand may not have kicked a ball in anger this season but the Manchester United No.5’s season has begun with a £45k fine for a racially-themed exchange on Twitter. The FA slapped Ferdinand with the fine for responding to a Tweet that labelled Ashley Cole a ‘choc-ice’ despite not directly using that term to describe his former England teammate, see below.

Of course this exchange was referring to Cole’s defence of Chelsea teammate John Terry in a court case involving Ferdinand’s brother Anton.Of course this case crowned a plethora of legal issues involving social media in the Premier League last season, in fact it could be argued that it was the first social media season.

One other notable lowlight of the season was ex-professional player and sports broadcaster Stan Collymore receiving legal threats via Twitter during last season. Of course Ferdinand’s club manager Sir Alex Ferguson has publicly expressed his desire for none of his players to Tweet but in an age where players are brands in their own right, how realistic is this?

The FA too has drawn up guidelines on how players can use social media responsibly with Arsenal player Emmanuel Frimpong also facing charges of improper conduct charges under FA Rule, section E3, for remarks he made to a Tottenham Hotspur fan on Twitter.

Some have called this curb on players’ freedom to make their opinion’s known an attack on freedom of speech but in the professional era the rush to implement ‘codes of conduct’ is reflective of the growing corporate culture in the game.

By Ronan Shields.