Manchester United had a difficult campaign in 2021 season and missed on a Champions League trophy, but they were not the only one. Arsenal can say the same, as they missed on the fourth place near the very end of the season, Leicester underperformed massively comparing a last few seasons, Burnley, Watford and Norwich were relegated…..and yet the Red Devil fans were somehow the most disappointing of them all. Not only that the expectations were much higher, but there are also more United’s fans than in all other clubs, so it’s not (a big) surprise that a recent analysis shows that Manchester United’s players are by far the most abused footballers in England.A report from Ofcom shows Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire were the most abused Premier League players on Twitter last year. Graphic via BBC. pic.twitter.com/u8pyD5sZnh— Jacque Talbot (@jac_talbot) August 2, 2022 The Alan Turing Institute recently analyzed more than 2.3 million tweets directed at Premier League footballers over the first five months of the 2021/22 season, more precisely, from August to January 2022 and the results show that on the list of 10 most abused players in the league, 8 of them are from Manchester United. And one of the best footballers ever to put a shirt on, Cristiano Ronaldo, tops the list with 12520 abusive tweets. Right after him is United’s captain Harry Maguire with 8954, while all others are way behind them. Marcus Rashford had 2557 abuses, Bruno Fernandes 2464, Harry Kane 2127, Fred 1924, Jesse Lingard 1605 Jack Grealish 1538, Paul Pogba 1446 and David De Gea 1394.You don’t like being booed? Then start playing wellAs seen from the list, only two players are not from Manchester United, and those two are Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Jack Grealish from Manchester City. As for the top player Cristiano Ronaldo, he received the most abuses when he made a transfer from Juventus to Manchester, while Harry Maguire ‘provoked’ fans by issuing apology to the fans after a bad display on November 2021. There are other players, some of them just an average ones, even in their own teams, who had a high number of abuse, considering a number of tweets. Ciaran Clark, James McArthur and Benjamin Mendy had a high percentage of abuse (34%, 30% and 24%) of all the tweets they received, usually for one specific reason. For example, Ciaran Clark was abused for receiving a red card in Newcastle’s game against Manchester City, while Mendy received abuses after being accused of rape.##NAJAVA_MECA_6541731##An analysis also showed that hundreds of abusive tweets are sent to footballers every day, almost 60,000 in just the first half of the season – an average of 362 every day, equivalent to one every four minutes.”These findings shed light on a dark side to the beautiful game. Online abuse has no place in sport, nor in wider society, and tackling it requires a team effort. Social media firms needn’t wait for new laws to make their sites and apps safer for users. When we become the regulator for online safety, tech companies will have to be really open about the steps they’re taking to protect users” said Kevin Bakhurst, Ofcom’s group director for broadcasting and online content.
