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Rozenbachs’ Chapecoense tweet a disgraceful misuse of Twitter influence

The football world is in mourning after news that Chapecoense, a side from Brazil’s Serie A were aboard a flight that crashed en route to Medellin in Colombia.

Dylan Arvela
3 min readNov 29, 2016

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The flight which was carrying 81 people, crashed in a mountainous rural area near the city of Medellin. At the time of writing, 76 have been confirmed dead. This includes 19 Chapecoense players who were set to play the game of their lives in the final of the Supercopa Sudamericana. In the darkness of this tragedy some brightness emerged from their opponents, Atletico Nacional who submitted a request to CONMEBOL to declare Chapecoense the champions — showing the strength of the football family. I recommend following South American football correspondent, Tim Vickery who has shared and will likely share more knowledgable views on the side than I.

However, in this vulnerable time, Australia’s internal code war struck a disgraceful blow in the form of the below tweet (now deleted) from Adam Rozenbachs, co-host of the JunkTime AFL Podcast.

I have never been one to engage in the bickering between the AFL and the FFA but this tweet is despicable and insensitive.

Rozenbachs has over 10,000 followers on Twitter. In this strange time in human evolution that means influence and this is a clear abuse of such. An hour later he tweeted a quasi-apology (below) explaining how he just saw the headline and did not realise the gravity of the situation. WTF. If a right-minded individual sees a headline about a plane crash with survivors (meaning there was fatalities) they should not dare tweet a joke about it.

Rozenbachs’ Twitter bio reads, “I think. I write. Sometimes I should put a step in between those two.” — Bloody oath you should, a step where you find out the facts and not leave a vulgar comment on the situation.

This is a prime example of how Twitter can be abused, usually it is by pathetic trolls or Donald Trump. This guy seems to have some sway in AFL circles and has leveraged his position to have a pop at football’s simulation issue and frankly it has backfired.

I think it is disgraceful from a person who describes himself as a comedian, a profession I admire for bringing laughter and happiness. He says “lesson learned” however I believe he deserves to have his name tarnished if he doesn’t deliver a proper apology. I feel he has no better platform than his AFL podcast to make it clear to everyone including his listeners that he has made a deplorable error.

Update 23/12/16

Unfortunately, my article didn’t get any response from Rozenbachs. I did note that he refrained from using Twitter for a week, perhaps considering his actions. Also, when I tried to get in touch with Rozenbachs last week…

ok mate.

I did mean to add an audio clip from the Daily Football Show that shares Mark van Aken’s views on the tweet — hear that here.

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Dylan Arvela
Dylan Arvela

Written by Dylan Arvela

Journalist, writer, UOW political grad, football lover and author of ‘A Drop in the Ocean: The story of Woonona’s Illawarra Premier League championship’.

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