Tweeting Player Power

Just a short note on player-power in rugby and football.

It's got out of hand, hasn't it? And it's mainly due to Twitter.

At the end of the 6 Nations, the RFU were looking to appoint a permanent Head Coach of the England rugby team. Nick Mallett was the main and then the only option apart from keeping Stuart Lancaster in his role. England had a good tournament and the team was clearly happy.

Twitter gave these happy and contented players (the ones chosen by Lancaster, of course...) the public forum to support their Head Coach's bid for permanency. They abused it. Several players went above their station and put their employers in a very difficult position. Whether Lancaster was the right man is not the point; that was the RFU's decision and not that of the players. They had no right to publicly name their preference, thereby holding their employer to ransom. By all means they should have made their views known through senior players and the captain but to go public was inappropriate and unprofessional.

Imagine if the RFU had disagreed with the players. To do so would not have been as stupid as it sounds. I doubt all the players who Lancaster left out were feeling as cheery about his permanent appointment as those Tweeters. The public would know immediately that Player A preferred Lancaster and so would Mallett. Hardly the ideal start to a new regime.

Similarly with the FA, numerous players voiced their support for Harry Redknapp. So it turns out, Roy Hodgson is the new manager instead. That immediately undermines Hodgson and leaves him in a role which he knows several senior players don't want him in.

What were both sets of players trying to achieve? Was it to save/consolidate their own international careers? Was it with a genuine concern for the direction of their national team? Probably a bit of both. But as soon as they took to their Twitter accounts they showed disrespect to their national associations/union, disrespect to the other candidates seeking to land the job and an extremely unprofessional attitude with which to begin the reign of a new national manager.