Sports Stars on Twitter

We have listed the top five biggest users of Twitter from the world of Soccer, Rugby, Golf, Formula One and Tennis. Although when we say the biggest users, we suspect that many of these accounts are handled by the player’s agents and their management companies. During our research, we came across some interesting findings.

Football

It seems oddly fitting that the biggest tweeters from the beautiful game are from the Spanish League, given Spain’s dominance of world football at the moment, although many of the footballers on the list aren’t actually of Spanish descent. At the top of the table is Brazilian Kaka has over 5.3 million followers, that’s more than the entire population of Ireland. In second place is his Madrid teammate, Cristiano Ronaldo, followed by Diego Forlan who plays for cross-town rivals, Athletico Madrid. Rio Ferdinand is the only Premier League player to make it into the top five.

@KAKA
Madrid
Bio: Um cristao, marido e pai. Que ama o futebol
Followers: 5,200,898

@Cristiano
Madrid
Followers: 3,642,834

@DiegoForlan7
Madrid
Bio: Goleador del Mundial 2010, disputa su tercer Copa América y es uno de los delanteros más importantes de la tabla de goleadores de Uruguay según DIRECTV Sports.
Followers: 1,578,219

@andresiniesta8
Barcelona
Bio: Andrés Iniesta Lujan, born in Fuentealbilla the 11th of may of 1984. Football player from the FC Barcelona in Spain.
Followers: 1,420,040

@rioferdy5
Manchester, UK
Bio: Official Twitter account of Rio Ferdinand
Followers: 1,329,319

@dgibbo28 Man Utd's Darren Gibson and Twitter

As footballers rush to join the social networking revolution that is Twitter, they may be advised to pause and reconsider following Darron Gibson's sobering experience.

The Manchester United midfielder – perhaps inspired by his team-mate Wayne Rooney's ability to attract nearly 200,000 followers within two days of joining the site – opened his own account at midday. The launch was announced with much fanfare by Gibson's captain at United, Rio Ferdinand, who tweeted: "We have a new member from the Man utd crew... @dgibbo28 has joined twitterverse show him some love tweeps!"

But two hours later the account had been shut down – seemingly because of the 23-year-old's unwillingness to put up with the abuse he was receiving from purported United fans.

Some of the messages aimed in the direction of the Republic of Ireland international included:

@dgibbo28 your performance on saturday was one of the worst I've ever seen of any utd player. scared of the ball much?'
@dgibbo28 hasn't tweeted yet. Seems somewhat fitting after the countless anonymous performances we've seen from the 'footballer'
@dgibbo28 my mate thought you were about 33 years old in the heart of midfield! Movement like pirlo!!
@dgibbo28 team do all hard work keeping possession then u hit row Z every fuckin time!!
@dgibbo28 the biggest compliment i can give you is that you are better than Carrick

Shortly after Gibson removed himself from the firing line, several other United supporters started a campaign to coax him back on to Twitter, attempting to get a #getbackgibbo hashtag to trend.

Gibson is among Manchester United's squad for their Champions League semi-final first leg against Schalke on Tuesday night. No doubt he will be hoping for a slightly warmer reception from the travelling United fans in Gelsenkirchen.