MOSCOW: Russia coach Dick Advocaat will not follow the lead of Spain’s Vicente Del Bosque and ban his players from using Twitter during the Euro 2012 finals in Poland and Ukraine.
Over the weekend several Spanish footballers, including Barcelona’s Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Pique and Victor Valdes informed their followers that they won’t be allowed to post anything while their teams remain in the tournament.
Advocaat, asked for his view by RIA-Novosti, said: “I won’t do that because everybody is responsible for the things they write.”
Midfielder Roman Shirokov and goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev are two of the squad’s more frequent tweeters, with Shirokov particularly renowned in Russia for his sharp comebacks to unkind remarks.
Advocaat said that as a non-Russian speaker, he has never read Shirokov’s account, though he had heard of it and trusts the player not to push it too far.
“He knows what he can do and what he can’t, if he goes too far we will tell him,” the 64-year-old Dutchman said.
Germany boss Joachim Low also expressed concern about “rather dangerous” Twitter on Sunday, but also said he would not deprive his players of the right to use it.
# # # #