By David Owen
January 16 – Joseph Blatter, it is fair to say, has on occasion been slow to warm to new technology. When it comes to social media, however, the FIFA President is very much down with the kids.
Analysis of the use of Twitter by the 100-plus current members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful club in world sport, shows that when it comes to the number of followers, the 77-year-old Swiss national is very much on the top step of the podium.
With well over 513,000 followers, Blatter has more than twice as many as the second-most followed IOC member, Angela Ruggiero, the 34-year-old US ice hockey star, with some 247,000.
The medium does not exactly appear to have swept through the IOC like wildfire – only around 30 members seemed to have accounts with more than 10 followers (though it is sometimes hard to be absolutely certain that an account is what it purports to be, and I might inadvertently have missed some members’ offerings altogether).
Twitter is gaining in popularity, though, with a high proportion of those IOC members most active on the medium having gained access to the club in the last few years.
Blatter entered the IOC in 1999, the year after he became FIFA President.
Unless IOC President Thomas Bach takes to Twitter with a vengeance, it seems likely that Blatter will be the first IOC member to sail past one million followers, perhaps during this summer’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
After Blatter and Ruggiero, the balance of the top five IOC tweeters comprises Gerardo Werthein, President of the Argentine Olympic Committee (with around 65,000 followers); Stefan Holm, the Swedish high-jumper (33,000); and Tony Estanguet, a French canoeist (19,000).
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