Twitter fines are becoming a tidy revenue stream for the FA

The FA has made about £350,000 from fining players for social media related offenses since 2011, according to the Guardian. This has to be one of the easiest new revenue streams for the organization and one of the dumbest ways to lose money for the footballers paying the fines.

The most recent contributor was QPR defender Rio Ferdinand, who has fined £25,000 and banned for three matches for a tweet that included the word "sket," which is Caribbean slang for "whore." Ferdinand is the 12th player to be suspended for a social media offense. This is also his second Twitter fine. The first came in 2012 when he retweeted a message from another user that called Ashley Cole a "choc ice."

Speaking of Ashley Cole, he holds the record for the single largest Twitter fine of £90,000 for insulting the FA itself that same year. And to think this all started in 2011 when Ryan Babel, then with Liverpool, was fined £10,000 for tweeting a photoshopped picture of referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt.

By the Guardian's count, the FA has investigated 121 social media cases in the last three years and 60 of those investigations have led to charges.

Though Rio Ferdinand is nearing the end of his career, with a bit of luck he might be able to pull off the Twitter fine hat trick before he retires to cement his place as football's king of social media idiocy. Which would be fitting for a man who titled his latest autobiography, which was printed on actual paper, "#2sides."

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Brooks Peck is the editor of Dirty Tackle on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him or follow on Twitter! Follow @BrooksDT

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