90 Minutes on the Pitch, 24/7 Online: The New Reality of Being a Footballer

Imagine missing a penalty in front of 50,000 people. Years ago, the criticism might have followed you into the newspapers the next morning or appeared on television later that evening. Today, before you even reach the dressing room, thousands of people may already be judging you online. Comments. Memes. Messages. Videos of the mistake. Opinions from people you have never met.

The match ends after 90 minutes. The attention doesn’t.

Social media hasn’t changed what it takes to play football. Players still need talent, discipline, consistency, physical preparation and mental strength. What it has changed is what it means to be a footballer. Today’s players are not only athletes. Whether they choose it or not, many are also public figures, content creators and personal brands.

More Than Just a Player

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X have given footballers something previous generations never really had: direct access to their audience. They can show training sessions, recovery, life behind the scenes, celebrations, charity work or simply moments away from football.

And fans clearly care about that connection. A study analysing 1,727 Instagram posts from 289 professional Major League Soccer players found that posts connected to athletic performance generated particularly strong engagement. High-quality images and posts featuring teammates also performed better.

It tells us something interesting: supporters don’t only want to watch players for 90 minutes. They want to know the people behind the shirts. That can be incredibly powerful. A player from a smaller league no longer needs major television coverage to build an audience. Women footballers can reach thousands — sometimes millions — of people even when traditional sports media gives their competitions limited attention. But with that opportunity comes a new expectation.

Does Every Footballer Have to Become a Content Creator?

This is where things become complicated. Today, having a strong social-media presence can create opportunities far beyond the pitch. Sponsors look at followers, engagement and audience demographics. Players can build businesses, attract partnerships and create a personal brand that continues long after their playing career ends.

Research into athlete branding suggests that successful footballers often combine sporting performance with authentic communication and carefully chosen commercial partnerships. For some players, this is a huge opportunity.

But what about the player who simply wants to play football? Should every footballer need an Instagram strategy? Should staying private make someone less commercially valuable? And should players be expected to share their lives simply because supporters now have the technology to follow them?

There is a strange contradiction in modern football. We ask players to be authentic — but analyse everything they post. We want them to have personality — but criticise them when we disagree with it. We want access to their lives — and then sometimes forget where the boundary between the player and the person should be.

One Mistake Can Follow You Home

Perhaps the darkest side of this new reality appears after things go wrong. A missed penalty once happened inside a stadium. Now it can follow a player home.

FIFA and FIFPRO’s Social Media Protection Service scanned more than 20 million posts and comments during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. After AI detection and human review, 19,636 posts and comments were confirmed as abusive, discriminatory or threatening.

And the problem is not limited to men’s football. During the 2023 Women’s World Cup, more than 150 monitored players — roughly one in five — received discriminatory, abusive or threatening messages, according to FIFA and FIFPRO.

Think about what that means. A player can finish one of the biggest matches of their career, pick up their phone and immediately find strangers attacking not only their performance, but potentially their race, gender, nationality, sexuality, religion or family.

Criticism is part of professional sport. Abuse should never be.

The Pressure Doesn’t End at the Final Whistle

Social media also makes switching off increasingly difficult. After a bad match, a player once had some possibility of leaving the stadium and separating themselves from public opinion. Now that opinion is sitting in their pocket.

Open Instagram. Open X. Read the comments. See the ratings. Watch the clip of your mistake again. And again.

This can be particularly difficult for young players. Footballers can become internationally recognised while they are still teenagers. They are expected to deal with pressure, criticism and millions of opinions at an age when most people are still discovering who they are.

We often talk about whether young players are physically ready for professional football. Maybe we should also ask whether football is doing enough to prepare them for everything that comes with being publicly visible 24 hours a day.

Social Media Isn’t the Enemy

None of this means social media is bad for football. Far from it. It has brought players and supporters closer together. It has given athletes control over their own stories rather than forcing them to communicate only through journalists and clubs.

It has helped women’s football, smaller leagues and less-known players reach audiences they may never have reached through traditional media. It has created businesses, careers, communities and opportunities. It allows players to speak about racism, mental health, charity and issues that matter to them.

The problem isn’t that footballers have social media. The challenge is learning where football ends and the person begins.

A New Definition of Being a Footballer

Being a professional footballer has always meant dealing with pressure. But the pressure has changed. Today, players have to manage performance, public communication, sponsorships, privacy and constant online judgement — all while representing a club and, for some, an entire country.

The modern footballer can build a global audience from a phone. That is an extraordinary opportunity. But the same phone can also deliver thousands of opinions directly into their private life.

Perhaps that is the contradiction at the heart of modern football. Players have never been closer to the fans, but they have also never had fewer places to hide from them.

Football used to demand 90 minutes under the spotlight. Today, that spotlight rarely switches off. The match may end at the final whistle. For the modern footballer, the judgement doesn’t.

Research & Sources

The research and statistics referenced in this article are based on studies and reports from FIFA, FIFPRO and the European Sport Management Quarterly, including FIFA and FIFPRO’s Social Media Protection Service reports from the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, as well as academic research examining athlete branding, social-media engagement and the relationship between professional athletes and their online audiences.

— Stacey | Beyond the Game