BBC and ITV commence battle
The state of the English game on the pitch has occupied thousands of words and hours of airtime during this summer’s extravaganza in Germany and will no doubt continue to do so until England’s inevitable early departure from the World Cup in a few days’ time. But, more than any other tournament, a storm of controversy and debate has surrounded the coverage of the tournament by our esteemed national broadcasters the BBC and ITV.
Mark Lawrenson and the increasingly incompetent John Motson have borne the brunt of much of the criticism – and rightly so. The signs of Motson’s decline have though been apparent for a while. During last season’s Liverpool v Manchester United FA Cup tie, Peter Crouch’s winning goal was met with the sheep-skinned one proclaiming, minutes after the event, that his headed goal “may have come off the post”. Everyone else in the ground and at home could hear as much as see the fact that it had crashed off both uprights.
The BBC have reacted to criticism of their punditry in a staunch, if hopefully ironic, manner. “We are delighted” was the response to an article in The Sunday Times which drew attention to the fact that, on the BBC’s official website, fans had been posting “offensive abuse” at the corporation’s ailing analysts and commentators.
Martin O’Neill’s place on the BBC rota of pundits offers a tantalising glimpse of who England should have turned to post-Eriksson, but his colleagues Ian Wright and Alan Shearer put forward only misguided hope and patriotism. And sat in the co-commentator’s chair in the lesser games, Mick McCarthy’s interjections have made both Sunderland’s plight last season and Roy Keane’s walk-out in Korea and Japan four years ago only more understandable.
The trend of employing foreign pundits, started during Euro ’96 with Ruud Gullit, has again paid off though. Former World Cup winning Brazil wing-back Leonardo offers insightful and original analysis, particularly on his native Brazil. Marcel Desailly on the BBC has been another success. Nonetheless, there does seem to be an element of racial stereotyping taking place with the assumption (on both main channels) that former French and Dutch internationals Desailly and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink have an intricate knowledge of the competing African nations. Thankfully Ron Atkinson has been nowhere to be seen.
Another drag has been Clive Tyldsley’s apparent obsession with the eccentric Mexican manager Ricardo La Volpe’s smoking. Seemingly overly concerned with the health of Volpe, Tyldsley feels the need to comment on this issue at the very least three times a game – a classic being “La Volpe has threatened to quit on many occasions - his job that is, not smoking”.
As often, the dulcet tones of Alan Green, Mike Ingham and Terry Butcher on Radio 5 Live provide the best commentary and punditry in the British media. And while the prospect of crowding around the ‘wireless’ is not especially inciting it may be the only way that the world class football on show can be matched by anything approaching world class by the many ex-professionals enjoying their lucrative summer employment.
By Ben Masters
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
