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The British Olympic Association (BOA) has revealed it will be issuing guidelines for Twitter to all 26 sports participating at the London 2012 Games.

The BOA has stressed the guidelines will in no way be enforced upon athletes and they will not be a set of rules or restrictions.

Instead, they will simply offer advice to Olympic sports and their athletes on what the BOA deems effective and ineffective use of the social networking phenomenon.

Darryl Seibel, the BOA head of Olympic media and communications strategy, told Inside the Games: "Social media outlets such as Twitter have undoubtedly become an extremely effective and efficient method of communication for many athletes.

"We are hugely supportive of athletes using Twitter, fully aware of how important it is and conscious of the positive effect it can have, particularly in terms of getting younger generations involved in the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement. We are fully behind that.

"The guidelines we will be issuing to the individual governing bodies are exactly that – guidelines.

"They will only provide guidance and give useful advice – it will also be up to individual sports themselves to set rules."

Meanwhile, the Football Association has announced that it will crack down on comments made using Twitter and other social networking sites.

Liverpool's Ryan Babel last month became the first player to be sanctioned for comments made on Twitter, when he was fined £10,000 for posting a mocked-up picture of the referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt. Arsenal's Jack Wilshere escaped action recently after using his Twitter account to complain of "inconsistent refereeing".

An FA statement read: "The FA has issued clarification to participants relating to the use of social networking sites, including – but not limited to – Twitter, Facebook and internet blogs. Participants should be aware that comments made on such sites may be considered public comment, and that further to FA Rule E3, any comments which are deemed improper, bring the game into disrepute, or are threatening, abusive, indecent or insulting may lead to disciplinary action.

"Comments which are personal in nature or could be construed as offensive, use foul language or contain direct or indirect threats aimed at other participants are likely to be considered improper."