Top 10 Most Abused Players on Twitter as Cristiano, Maguire Lead List

• Cristiano Ronaldo receives the most abuse on Twitter among all football stars, according to a new study
• Manchester United captain Harry Maguire came second on the list, with abuse directed at him peaking following the 2-0 defeat to Man City in November 2021
• The study came to some interesting findings as eight Manchester United players made the top 10 of most abused players on Twitter

Manchester United duo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire are the most abused players on Twitter, according to an interesting new study.

The study was carried out by Ofcom and the Alan Turing Institute in the UK, and it found that Ronaldo, despite being Manchester United’s top scorer last season with 24 goals, received the most abuse on Twitter.

BBC reports that the findings also revealed that half of the abuse was directed at 12 individuals, with eight of them being Manchester United players.

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After teaming up with UK's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, Ofcom analysed 2.3 million tweets published in the first half of the 2021-22 campaign.

At least 60,000 abusive posts were found directed at Premier League players, and they were all disseminated in the first half of the 2021/22 season.

Ronaldo was sent the most number of abusive messages from August 13 and January 24, with a massive 12,520 aimed towards slamming the five-time Ballon d'Or winner.

United captain Harry Maguire came second on the unfortunate list, with at least 8,954 abusive messages directed at him in the same period.

Abusive tweets were also found to affect seven in 10 top-flight players.

Among the top 10

Other players who were in the top 10 of the most abused online included:

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Marcus Rashford (2,557)

Bruno Fernandes (2,464)

Fred (1,924)

Jesse Lingard (1,605)

Paul Pogba (1,446)

and David De Gea (1,394), all from Manchester United.

Harry Kane (2,127) and Jack Grealish (1,538) also made the list.

Peaks in the frequency of abuse

Interestingly, the abuse was not evenly scattered in the mentioned time frames as the study further broke down the times when Twitter was at its peak in terms of coming for the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo.

The first peak came when Ronaldo rejoined Manchester United from Juventus on August 27.

Abuse then peaked when Maguire tendered a social media apology to fans after a 2-0 defeat to Manchester City on November 7.

There is however a bright side, as the study also concluded that majority of football fans used social media responsibly.

Ronaldo vs haters

Recently, Cristiano Ronaldo has been public enemy number one in the eyes of Manchester United fans after expressing his desire to leave the club.

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However, having failed to find a suitable club in the Champions League, Ronaldo made a return to the club and featured in a friendly against Rayo Vallecano on Sunday, July 31.

Hours before the game, the forward went on a social media rampage where he slammed media for always talking about him, saying it was “impossible not to discuss him”.

“Impossible not to talk about me one day. Otherwise the press makes no money. You know that if you don’t lie you can’t get people’s attention. Keep going that one day you get some news right.” Ronaldo boldly declared on Instagram.