After a match and usually followed by a trip to pub, football supporters often spend time visiting club forums, sites and unofficial message boards to debate the fortunes of their club in the company of their fellow supporters. However this sort of freedom of expression has come under threat from the powerful clubs who want to clamp down on any dissent towards them or anything that they think may harm their chances of success.
Just this weekend we have seen a high profile case where Neil Warnock criticised a QPR fan after details of his team selection ahead of Saturday’s 1-1 home draw against Blackburn were posted on a fans forum website on Friday afternoon. Warnock made his feelings towards the perpetrator known as he believed that such a leak was giving a potential advantage to their opponents.
The information was sensitive and I can understand why he wouldn’t want it being leaked to the press and ultimately to Blackburn but to suggest that Steve Kean was going to spend time scouring messages boards looking for team news seems very unrealistic and indeed he said after the game that he had not seen the message about the team news on the QPR forum. It is also very clear that the person responsible did not mean to harm the clubs’ chances by posting the information on a public board but in truth what is more concerning for Warnock and what he should be focusing on is that one of his players is willing to release information like this into the public domain despite the fact that it is obviously confidential information.
The QPR manager certainly has a reputation of blaming others for his teams’ hardships but even for him it seems harsh to have a go at a loyal fan who probably thought he was providing a service to his fellow fans in this instantaneous world we live in. It is not like the team news was of the utmost importance either as Campbell has only started one game this season and it wasn’t that surprising to see the irrepressibleTaarabt on the bench.
It appears that some football managers and clubs have never quite got the hang of the internet with all its free speech. The days of a few hundred copies of a fanzine have been replaced with a website that has potential audience of millions and this caused some draconian over reaction aimed less at protecting a team’s good name and instead trying to creating a climate of fear that will cause fans to falter before sounding off or even offering an different view.