Emmanuel Eboue joins Twitter - So what now for the ex-Arsenal ace's famous parody?

Just yesterday we reported on Galatasaray's invitation to the annual Emirates Cup, hosted by Arsenal - which will give Emmanuel Eboue the chance to return to his former club.

Now just as noteworthy - Fans of the player can now get in touch with him via Twitter - Because he has signed up to the social networking site as of today.

Bear with us here, especially if you thought Eboue was already on Twitter - He wasn't.

A famous parody account, named @therealebouee (note the two e's) has been purporting to be the defender for around two years. In that time he has amassed more than 150,000 followers.

Here is a typical tweet from the parody account posted two days ago:

Just got to training. Speak to you people later. Time to go and wind up drogba my brother

— King Emanuel Ebouee (@TheRealEbouee) March 20, 2013

The account has caught out on occasion, many news media reporting his comments as genuine before it was figured out - with even former teammate Bacary Sagna falling for it.

The fake account does a great job of pretending to be Eboue, feigning outrage when Robin van Persie quit the club - and regularly bemoaning Arsenal's poor form, keeping it up and interacting with fans on a daily basis.

But just earlier this month a mini-storm was caused ahead of the African Nations Cup clash between Nigeria and Ivory Coast - when the fake account started slagging off Nigerians.

This was put to the genuine Emmanuel Eboue (keeping up?) who was not happy at the comments.

He said: "That is not me. I would never ever do that or say such things, I don’t use Twitter or Facebook.

"As soon as I heard what he was saying, I called my friend John Mikel Obi and told him that that was not me.

"I also called Kanu (former Nigeria captain) and explained to him that it was not me. They were both very understanding and told me not to worry."

But now he has joined up to Twitter, which could certainly be interesting. At time of writing he has only 1,800 followers - far short of his imposter's 150,000.

Interestingly - the genuine Eboue does follow former teammate Robin van Persie.

His first tweet can be seen below:

Very happy to be in twitter finally..thanks to my PR for helping me setup this account. Welcome it's going to be a good ride!

— Emmanuel Eboué (@27ManuEboue) March 22, 2013

So far, and it is early days, the defender is yet to acknowledge his parody account - and vice versa.

But it is only a matter of time, and could be quite interesting, especially to see if the actual Eboue, can be as controversial and resultantly popular as the man (or woman) who claims to be him.

image: © wonker