Football and social media is a modern-day relationship that goes hand in hand.
An extra revenue stream, a chance to flaunt their extravagant lifestyle, all whilst being adored by millions around the world, the online world is worth billions to professional players, but one platform is seemingly losing its golden touch.
With plenty of controversy surrounding the platform, new research has detailed why so many top-level stars no longer see a future with the once-booming application used by an estimated 240–300 million daily active users.
One platform is being ditched by professionals players around the world - but why?
After a high-profile takeover in October 2022, many users have begun to ditch the platform, due to its lack of content filters and question marks over hatred it allows to be spread daily.
Footballers are now choosing to build their brands elsewhere as more and more people opt for other apps to get their social-media fix on the daily. So why is that and what's the reason for its decline you may ask?
According to The Athletic, X, formerly known as Twitter, is being ditched by most footballing celebrities simply because it allows hatred to filter through at a sheer mass rate.
Elon Musk completed his takeover of the company in 2022 and since then, blue.sky has launched as a rival competitor which millions have opted to now use as an alternative. Pornography, racism and death feature heavily on the platform and plenty of clubs are also following suit too.
“Elon Musk has turned a debate room into a hate amplifier that can also influence the German parliamentary election campaign,” St Pauli spokesperson Patrick Gensing told The Athletic. “Insults and threats are barely sanctioned and sold as supposed freedom of speech.
“It can be assumed that X will also promote authoritarian, misanthropic and right-wing extremist content in the German parliamentary election campaign and thus manipulate public discourse. Musk tries to influence the discussions and the election in Germany and he supports the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany).”
“When we’re working with new players, X is never even a conversation anymore, really, whereas four or five years ago it used to be,” says Ehsen Shah, the founder and CEO of B-Engaged, a company that provides social media services to players including Hector Bellerin, Kai Havertz, Thiago Alcantara, Alphonso Davies and Serge Gnabry.
“We used to say, ‘This is a platform where you can have a bit more of a raw opinion, you can say what you want to say in a word format rather than always having to rely on having an image and sitting on your Instagram grid’, which players want to look a certain way.
“Players can’t really do that anymore. They don’t see it as a platform that they can actually work with and for us as the professionals behind it, it’s because of the negativity on that platform, whether it’s politics, sport, whatever else it might be.
“So why are we going to throw a player into that? It’s almost like seeing a house burning and thinking, ‘Oh yeah, let me just go in there and see what’s going on’.”
In FourFourTwo's view, we must concur that X (Twitter) is likely to die a slow death if more isn't done to filter content on the application.
Footballers and celebrities are continuing to build their followings on the likes of TikTok and Instagram and we can't see that trend changing anytime soon.
