Italian club, AS Roma launch Nigerian pidgin English Twitter account

Italian professional football club, Associazione Sportiva Roma, commonly referred to as AS Roma, has launched Nigerian pidgin English Tw...

Italian professional football club, Associazione Sportiva Roma, commonly referred to as AS Roma, has launched Nigerian pidgin English Twitter account purposely to serve its Nigerian fans.

The news, published on official AS Roma website, was announced on Wednesday (today).

The Italian club side also superimposed its logo on the Super Eagles World Cup branded T-Shirt as part of the deal.

Breaking the news, AS Roma states:

AS Roma is delighted to announce the launch today of a new official Pidgin English Twitter account for fans in Nigeria and neighbouring countries in Africa.


In launching the @ASRomaPidgin account, Roma have become the first major European football club to create an official social media profile specifically to communicate directly with followers in Nigeria.

The new account – which is being run out of Lagos and can be followed at @ASRomaPidgin – was set up after fans in Nigeria contacted the club to request an account to cater specifically for Naija Twitter.

Roma's popularity amongst Nigerian football fans has been growing ever since the club featured Lagos radio personality Mark Otabor's epic commentary of Roma's comeback against Barcelona on the club's English Twitter account and then 'adopted' Nigeria's Super Eagles at the World Cup.

The club's digital team then began working with the Nigerian FA ahead of the World Cup in Russia and helped the team on the ground with social strategy and the graphics that were seen on Twitter and Instagram throughout the tournament.

"After Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup and we chose to support the Super Eagles, followers in Nigeria have been asking for a Pidgin English Roma account," revealed Paul Rogers, Head of Strategy at AS Roma.

"The club's president Jim Pallotta watched Mark Otabor's commentary after the Barcelona game and then personally wrote to Mark to thank him and from that moment we've enjoyed a really fun relationship with our followers in Nigeria, who seem to enjoy our English Twitter account's sense of humour. The launch of this new account means that we can now directly engage with these fans on a daily basis in a style that suits them," Rogers added.

The launch of the new Pidgin English accounts means AS Roma now communicates in 13 different languages on social media – with official accounts also in Italian, English, Arabic, Indonesian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Bosnian, Turkish, Dutch, Farsi and Chinese.