Ryan Giggs. Family man. Manchester United legend. BBC Sports Personality of the Year. A great of the modern game. But clearly rubbish at PR.
This whole affair, to coin a phrase, has left football fans around the country chuckling away and the reputation of one of British football’s greats in tatters. But it shows that all the money in the world cannot buy you good public relations support.
Giggs has clearly been badly advised. His team of legal and public relations advisors have taken on too much and lost it all in the eyes of the public. And it could have been so different if he hadn’t been so desperate to cover this up. In the days of Twitter and social media, there was only going to be one winner. And that was the masses.
Of course hindsight is easy. But Giggs had the reputation among sports fans and the media alike that he was a saint. A respected winner. Let’s get away from the stupidity of his indiscretion; after all, he’s a footballer and they all do it. What should he have done? He should have taken the likely one hit – a front page of the News of the World – with people up and down the country thinking something along the lines of ‘what a load of rubbish, as if Giggsy would do that’. It would have been forgotten the next day, no-one would have taken it seriously and he’d be able to brush it off. Whether he should be able to or not is another matter, but that’s what likely would have happened.
This whole case sets a precedent. Can newspapers outside of UK jurisdiction now just out a case like this and then let the internet do the rest? After all, Twitter went after this like vultures, in a mob-like manner. But I am sure that the Sunday Herald doesn’t care too much – reports suggest that they had over 1 million views on Sunday to their website when they broke the story (even though it wasn’t even covered online) and almost 2 million views on Monday as the story started to really unfold. Apparently, their online readership grew 220%. With these kinds of figures, plus the rise in print circulation from the day itself, it is unlikely to deter other papers in the future.
And now? Well, he’s the man who tried to take on Twitter. He’s the man who tried desperately to block it. He’s the man who cannot deny it. And he’s the man who stands here today with a reputation in tatters, a laughing stock, and as he approaches the end of his career, something that he’s likely to be remembered for. It could have been so different.
I don’t really care about footballer’s private lives; it doesn’t really interest me and he’s a complete idiot for doing what he did. But I, like so many others, now find it pretty funny. I’m particularly enjoying ribbing our resident Man Utd fan here in the office who’s devastated that her hero has been revealed as a love cheat. He’ll probably score the winner on Saturday night at Wembley. It might be the last time he scores away from home though.
