One in 14 players received abusive tweets every day, according to the report, with half of all abusive messages being directed at 12 players who received on average 15 per day.
Twitter has shown that Manchester United legends Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire are the most abused players. Both the Manchester United players received tons of abusive tweets over their performances. On the basis of data collected by Ofcom shows that 2.3 million messages were directed at Premier League players over the first five months of the 2021-22 season.
Ronaldo has got 12,520 abusive messages as per the data displayed by Ofcom. On the other hand, Maguire has 8,954 tweets against him. The 60,000 tweets were dissected from the period of Aug 2021 stretching to Jan 2022.
🚨 Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire are the two most abused Premier League players on Twitter, according to a new report from Ofcom.
📸 @BBCSport pic.twitter.com/BnEhoBCfYU
— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) August 2, 2022
The data found 60,000 posts deemed abusive, with 68% of players in the top flight receiving at least one message in that period. Nearly three-quarters of Premier League footballers received abusive messages with some of them receiving daily abuse.
This summer has seen Ronaldo search for a new club to play Champions League football in. His agent Jorge Mendes has spent most of this time trying to sell his client to Champions League teams from all corners of Europe, while simultaneously imploring United to let him leave. But at 37, Ronaldo’s powers have waned to some extent and teams are starting to understand that his signing would be a liability rather than a prized opportunity.
Despite scoring over 20 goals last season, Ronaldo’s arrival meant that United, who had finished second in the league the previous season after scoring 122 goals in all competitions, cut their total goal totals by well 52 goals. Enough to not win a single trophy, fall out of the Champions League (one of the main reasons why Ronaldo was brought back), and ultimately not even make the Champions League this season.
