FA should spend more time on improving our game and less on Twitter

West Ham striker Carlton Cole has recently got into trouble for making a remark via social network site Twitter about Ghana fans.

I not going to repeat what he wrote but it wasn’t exactly the worse comment I have seen on a footballers Twitter account.

Mountain

The English FA have again made a mountain out of a mole hill.

Do footballers not have the right to use social network websites in any way they choose?

Just because they are footballers they have to pick and choose what they say on these websites. They may be role models but they are only people after all.

Fan

I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of social network websites anyway. I do have a Twitter account and follow quite a lot of footballers on it. Most comments by footballers are really mundane, especially Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand who seems to have a Twitter addiction.

Free Speech

Do footballers not have the right to voice their opinions on certain subjects? It’s like they are expected to be seen and not heard. I thought most democratic countries are advocates of free speech. The last time I checked the England was a democratic country.

Apology

Carlton Cole has now apologised to any fans who were offended by what he called a joke. He also said that he would like the fine money to go to a children’s charity. That is a sensible suggestion but I doubt the FA will go for an idea put forward by a footballer because apparently they can’t be trusted.

Bumbling

The FA are just a big joke to me I’m afraid. When they are not overreacting over people swearing they are having a go at players for using social network sites. Most of the people involved in the FA are older than some of the Premier League clubs!

I am wondering just how the FA find out about these Twitter comments anyway. I can’t imagine many people emailing or writing to the FA to complain about comments made by Carlton Cole. However the media do like to publicise these Twitter slip-ups.

I see can’t anybody but the most sensitive of people being offended by the Tweet by the England international. There must be a lot of silver surfers at the FA for them to stumble across these comments.

Mistakes

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has received a 5 game ban from the FA for criticising referees Martin Atkinson’s performance in United’s defeat against Chelsea. Fergie may have gone slightly too far but surely he was only saying what most United fans were thinking.

Accountability

If a referee makes a mistake they never seem to be punished or demoted by the English FA. Very few referees are held accountable for the mistakes they make. What really irritates me is the fact that match officials often refuse to apologise or accept that they are wrong, even when their decisions have been proved wrong by television evidence.

Positive

I’m really not surprised by some of the decisions that are made by a group of people who don’t seem to be able to make positive contributions to our game. The only time we ever hear about a decision from the FA is when they are banning somebody or fining somebody for some small misdemeanour.

Just like FIFA I would really like there to be a bit more transparency within the organisation. Unfortunately that’s very unlikely due to fact that the English FA is so set in its ways. Knowing the FA I will be the next one to get a fine for this article but then again the boffins at the FA are probably too busy checking footballers accounts to have read my article!

What do our readers think of the English FA?