Cristiano Ronaldo’s Largest Unofficial Facebook Page Disappears
The largest unofficial Facebook Page for Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, with nearly 2.9 million fans according to PageData, has been removed from the Facebook site today. While we have not received official confirmation from Facebook, it’s possible that Facebook decided to remove the Page because it was not operated by Ronaldo or his authorized agent. Instead, it was run by Kunwar Ali, a big football (soccer) fan from Pakistan.
It’s another example of Facebook enforcing its policy on unofficial fan pages:
Fake Pages and unofficial “fan pages” are a violation of our Terms of Use. If you create an unauthorized Page or violate our Terms in any way, your Facebook account may be disabled.
In How Do You Treat a Fan Who Owns Your Facebook Page?, we discussed the five options brands can take in handling unofficial pages:
- Ask Facebook to transfer control of the Page to you.
- Ask the Page owners to transfer control to you.
- Ask the Page owner to share control with you.
- Ask Facebook to shut the Page down.
- Let the Page continue to exist, and start an “official” Page of your own.
However, Facebook is being proactive with the biggest unofficial Facebook Pages, bringing them to brands’ and agencies’ attention directly. In many cases, they get shut down or merged – but occasionally, like in the case of Coca-Cola, the creators of the unofficial Page gets hired by the brand to continue managing the Page.
Ali told Inside Facebook he is upset about the Page disappearing because he has had previous contact with Ronaldo’s official representatives, who expressed support for Ali operating the unofficial page that he’s been managing for over a year. Ali says by publishing four status updates per day, the unofficial Ronaldo page was seeing 4,000 comments and 120,000 page views daily.
However, it’s possible that since that time Ronaldo’s agent has worked with Facebook directly to make a plan for the launch of the official Cristiano Ronaldo page on Facebook, which apparently seems to not involve migrating fans over from the large unofficial one created by Ali.
We’ll let you know if/when we hear from Facebook.
Update: Facebook has confirmed that is has removed the Page: “In the process of communicating with Cristiano Ronaldo’s people, we discovered that the page admin was violating our Terms of Service and so we removed the page,” a Facebook spokesperson told Inside Facebook.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:55 am
The only real option would be number 3. All the other options look like you trying to take control and backlash will happen if you do one of the others, IMO.
I say work with the current owners and help them make the page even better with exclusive content. If the real “famous” person who the page is about comes to the page, you’ll only increase your fan base and likability.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Ronaldo?
Cupu….
Kaka is the best.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Does this mean we will see an official Cristiano Ronaldo page soon?
Or
Ronaldo`s agency refused to go with Facebook and Facebook decided to remove it?
May 8th, 2009 at 3:45 am
if Ronaldo doesn’t mind then it should be allowed? Infact he must be flattered by the fact that a fan spends sooooooooo much time on facebook per day juss to keep his fans upgraded
& as for facebook shouldn’t they be gald to have such users ?????
May 8th, 2009 at 3:54 am
If ronaldo don’t mind then i think there is no harm i think he should be flattered that a person spenda sooooooooooooooo much precious time juss to keep his friends upgraded & as for facebook shouldn’t they be glad to have such users ???????????????
May 8th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I think facebook should appreciated the page & try to make that page official seeing how favorite it was rather then deleting it
May 11th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
THE BEST
May 11th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
FUCK FACEBOOK!!!!
May 13th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Can you discuss how someone can transfer a fan page (or share control)?
Thank you.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:48 am
best player in the word
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:31 am
[...] agents behind Cristiano Ronaldo deleted the unofficial Facebook page that had been set up by a fan. They sent a rather curse email to the creator instead of choosing to [...]
November 16th, 2009 at 2:55 am
Bad idea by Cristiano’s agents. They obviously don’t understand the value of fans and the concept of social media.
It is becoming more and annoying to see passionate fans get sideswiped and legally beaten by brands because it has to be done their way. Go figure, a bad idea to accost your fans.
July 14th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
I JUST LOVE THIS GUY TO BITS HE DRIVEZ ME NUTS
February 4th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
اريد فيس بوك كرستيانو الحقيقي ونا من اشد المعجبين به