Like most recent years, 2016 also saw its share of spats by the football fraternity on social media. Global conglomerate Virgin tried belittling Birmingham’s Aston Villa’s terrible year by poking fun at their latest manager Roberto di Matteo’s departure. Villa did not take to this kindly by responding to its historical high trophy cabinet and Virgin’s own lack of punctuality with its train system. Joleon Lescott had a disastrous year on the pitch, but his reputation further suffered due to his tweet showing his luxury sports car at the height of his team’s troubles. Belgian striker Christian Benteke on signing for his new club Crystal Palace, remarkably got the club’s name wrong by instead updating his profile mentioning Burnley. On being reminded about this gaffe, he conveniently put the blame on his Twitter handlers, the agency that does digital marketing for his own brand. Other football clubs such as Leeds United, LA Galaxy, Brondby and Charlton Athletic all had their run-ins with banana-skin type PR disasters. Individuals not spared included Neymar, Joey Barton and Nicklas Bendtner.

Source:https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/dec/31/football-and-social-media-a-turbulent-12-months-in-review