Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden has dropped the company that he was paying to run his social media accounts following a controversial tweet calling out Paris Saint-Germain superstar Kylian Mbappe ahead of the Champions League semi-final between the clubs in the coming weeks.
A post from Foden’s Twitter account on Wednesday night after City knocked out Borussia Dortmund, with the 20-year-old becoming only the fifth Englishman to score in both legs of a Champions League knockout tie, directly addressed Mbappe and read, ‘Are you ready?’
The message garnered significant reaction but was soon deleted and it was quickly reported that Foden was unimpressed by what had happened.
The Daily Telegraph now reports that Foden made the decision on Thursday to cut ties with Ten Toes Media, the company that was being paid to run the account on his behalf. As yet, the player and his representatives have not settled on a new social media strategy.
Until this week, Ten Toes Media had been working with Foden for most of his career so far, while the company also counts Harry Kane, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andrew Robertson and Victor Lindelof among its list of high profile clients.
I mentioned on here a few weeks ago about players having their accounts run by social media companies. Lads run your own accounts! Your independent thought and authenticity is at stake . It’s your voice , not anyone else’s. Morning by the way . Go and attack the hell out of it ❤️ pic.twitter.com/M997r8kbWa
— Gary Neville (@GNev2) April 15, 2021A separate piece from the Daily Mail explains that footballers outsourcing their social media posts can pay up to £4,000 a month for a third party company to manage their accounts. Some players may even have no involvement at all with their own accounts.
The Foden tweet is the second recent example of a high profile mishap, with Joe Hart forced to apologise when the company running his Instagram account created a post reading ‘job done’ after Spurs had been embarrassed by Dinamo Zagreb in the Europa League.
Edited from 90Mins and GiveMeSport
Image from Premier League