Paul’s predicament kind of typifies the modern footballer

On Friday afternoon I was sent an email at work; it was a screenshot of somebody’s Facebook profile. Apparently, in the early hours of that morning Carol Konchesky had been vomiting insults about Liverpool fans all over the place and ‘standing up’ for her son. Shortly afterwards, Paul Konchesky’s mother’s profile was removed after receiving shovel-loads of angry messages from Liverpool fans; the internet never sleeps. For me, this raises two questions: Do footballers these days ever grow up? And whatever happened to footballers being ‘media trained’?

On that point, I am aware that Paul Konchesky’s mum is highly unlikely to have been trained on how to deal with the media but it did remind me of a number of incidents in the past 2 years when players have been caught out when posting thoughtlessly (and, more often, brainlessly) on Facebook and Twitter and what they’ve said has been in the tabloids less than 24 hours after. Recently, we’ve had Jermain Defoe (several times) talking about incidents at his club. Along with Darren Bent and one or two other England teammates as well as our very own Ryan Babel ‘tweeting’ his mood swings about being left out of the side by former manager Rafa Benitez. Along with this, we’ve seen a number of players ‘outed’ by their Facebook activities in the Sunday’s; being found playing away and doing things they shouldn’t be. Of course, a lot of this could be avoided if the top players had internet awareness included in their media training. Since the dawn of the Premier League and the total saturation of all things football by Sky, footballers have been under a microscope in terms of their personal lives and many clubs introduced courses for players to be shown how to deal with and speak to the media, in all its forms. However, given the recent spate of online cock-ups, it appears that England’s footballers need a refresher in terms of what to do and not to do on the internet because, as Paul Konchesky is very soon to find out, social networking (even by your mum) can ruin your career.

Which brings me onto the next point: when did footballers become incapable of standing on their own two feet? When asked whether she would be moving to Merseyside with her son, Carol Konchesky replied ‘no, I can’t stand the accent’. That is totally her prerogative; there are plenty of regional accents I can’t stand and places I would never want to live. However, this comment implies that she moves wherever her son is playing. Which leads me to wonder why a 29 year old man has to take his mum and his entourage with him wherever he moves? He is a professional footballer; he has been on this earth almost 30 years and earns more in a week than I do in a year, yet his mum still fights his battles. What she has done to her son’s career at the club could only be compared to having your mum shout at the big lad at school who called you names: it’ll devastate his reputation and make him a laughing stock. Unfortunately, he is not the only one.

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This week it is former Liverpool WAG Abigail Clancy!

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