The Manchester United defender has embarrassed himself over the past week, scoring a series of own goals.
The most angry person in Britain right now? Quite probably Sir Alex Ferguson, who certainly has no love for social networking site Twitter.
The Manchester United manager will surely be reeling in his defender, reminding him to keep off the front pages.
During the trial of John Terry, accused of racially abusing Rio’s brother Anton, Rio was busy tweeting about Jim Carrey film ‘Liar Liar’.
He would deny any link between his Tweet and the trial, but the insinuations were plain to see for most of his followers to see.
What was the need? Terry was standing before a public court, and Rio’s tweet could be described as childish at best, if not stupid.
On Saturday after Terry was acquitted, the best thing Rio could have done would be what his brother did, not log into his Twitter account while his emotions would be running high.
Whether he was angry, upset or both, there was no need for him to comment on Ashley Cole’s involvement in the trial – a key witness of John Terry’s defence.
He made a comment he thought was innocuous, laughing at another user describing him as a ‘choc ice’ – a term Rio insists was not racist and Cole has been keen to play down through his agent.
Now he has created another storm, and created a major PR own goal, deflecting the attention away from John Terry. Even an FA charge of bringing the game into disrepute is not out of the question after the outrage it has caused.
At what point did the defender engage his brain on Saturday? And indeed the last week?
Rio is of course entitled to say what he wants, but by the same token he must live by the consequences, and that means media attention via his high profile.
What he has done again is keep the talk going about anything but football itself. Footballers on Twitter has been a positive thing by and large, giving us more of an insight into their seemingly pampered lives, and discussing important football issues too.
But it should be a case of Tweet sensibly, or don’t do it at all. Emmanuel Frimpong, Jack Wilshere, Wayne Rooney and Joey Barton are among those to shoot themselves in the foot via haphazard postings.
When a player’s tweets themselves have to potential to land them into hot water, make them look childish and stupid, make the front pages and cause us to forget what good footballers they are, it is time to logout and walk away.
image: © hitcdc
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