By Alex O’Connor

Jozy Altidore is currently dealing with a Twitter dilemma following several rumors of Altidore potentially leaving his current team. Altidore currently plays for Sunderland A.F.C., which is an English professional soccer team that plays in the English Premier League. Altidore’s career path has taken him on several pit stops in his young twenty-five year-old life. He has played for the New York Red Bulls, Villareal CF, Hull City, Bursaspor, AZ Alkmaar and Sunderland. This boils down to six teams in his young eight year career. On Saturday, rumors of Altidore leaving Sunderland for the MLS and The Los Angeles Galaxy were clarified on Twitter. However, the manner in which it was clarified was not in the best light. Altidore tweeted: “@LAGalaxy really? Stop blowing up my agents phone then. No means no.” There has been some consideration among media that Altidore was not the person behind the tweet, and would be the absolute wrong way to conduct a formal transaction of this nature.

Twitter is never the way to convey a message that is usually secret and professional. Though TheGuardian.com has acknowledged that Altidore may be leaving Sunderland this past January, this tweet harshly quieted those rumors. In an already hectic career for Altidore, it seems strange that he would personally latch out publically to the entire Galaxy organization and in such a manner as Twitter. The Galaxy organization also may have simply tried too hard to lure Altidore away from Sunderland. Altidore is known for being a generous and kind athlete, as he has aided citizens of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. In addition, in honor of the twenty-six Sandy Hook victims, he wrote their initials on his cleats in a game against FC Twente on December 21, 2012.

However, this tweet comes only days after Team U.S.A. lost to Columbia by a score of 2-1. There could be an underlying factor of bitterness that carried over to his message. In another opinion, NBCSports.com’s Kyle Bonn questions whether or not Altidore sent out the tweet himself. Athletes simply do not negotiate with other organizations over social media. Bonn connected the “no means no” excerpt of the tweet to the recent incident of Colt McCoy’s post-game interview on Monday Night Football after his win against the Cowboys. A PR employee with the Redskins refused an interview request by yelling “no means no” to ESPN reporter John Sutcliffe. Though the two instances are not related it is interesting to see two distinct media connections using the exact same phrasing.