Vanderlei Luxemburgo is the New Ashton Kutcher

By: Daryl | June 30th, 2009

I’ve seen it reported on the internets recently that Vanderlei Luxemburgo resigned as Palmeiras coach via Twitter. Brilliant as that may sound, it’s sadly not true.

The less sensational but more accurate thing to say is that Palmeiras sacked Luxemburgo last Friday, because he disagreed with the club’s decision to sell Keirrison. But Luxemburgo used both his Twitter account and his blog to share his side of the story.

Which may not be as exciting as a coach resigning via social media, but is still an interesting development in how we get our football news.

The above Tweet is from June 27th, the day of his sacking, and Google Translates as:

I am not the most technical Palmeiras. I was fired by the attitudes of Keirrison disagree. See text in my blog: uxemburgo.blog.uol.com.br

I’m pretty sure that actually translates as “I am no longer the coach at Palmeiras. I was fired because I disagree about Keirrison. See text in my blog: luxemburgo.blog.oul.br”

His blog post from that day can be found here, and translates as:

I just got out of a meeting where I was relieved of the post of Technical Society Sports Palmeiras. The reason alleged by the board was because I have broken the club’s hierarchy. That’s when I said that a lack of professionalism and respect to me and the cast by the athlete Keirrison, he, me and a technical, not play more in Palmeiras.

I record my gratitude for the opportunity I had to go once again the club, and soon, I will here in my blog, a review of my experience in the SEP.

So in a way, Luxemburgo is just like Hollywood Tweetaholic Ashton Kucher, in that he’s using new media (Tweets and blogs) to sidestep the world of the press and official statements and communicate directly with fans. (The only difference being that Luxemburgo actually has something interesting to say.)

I’m not the biggest Twitter fan, but could this is the future of how we get our football information? Slowly but surely, the world of football has become more and more secretive, more and more spin doctored in recent years. Managers now leave by “mutual consent” instead of being fired, and players are sold for “undisclosed” sums of money.

But if we can get every player and manager set up with a Twitter account, then access to what really happened will only ever be a Tweet away.