- Why Tuchel as a foreigner, has no right to criticise the behaviour of the England crowd
- Using Arteta as an excuse; it had to come sooner or later
By Tony Attwood
A recent reader’s comment on Untold read, “Your obsession with the media must be like whack-a-mole!”
In case you are not familiar with it, whack-a-mole is a game to be found in some amusement arcades in which players use a mallet to hit toy moles, which appear at random, back into their holes.
Now it is true that I do write quite a lot about the media in relation to football, but I wondered if it was a reasonable comment to dismiss my interest in the way that the media handles football matters as an obsession. Because surely what is chosen as the news is itself a form of bias, just as is the way that news that is chosen is then presented.
Put another way, the media (newspapers and TV primarily) choose as news, then becomes the news. In addition, the way they present the news then influences how we see that news. For example, the media is choosing not to present the fact that there is still no resolution to the Manchester Cit 115 charges means that discussion of the 115 charges has by and large stopped. And no one is asking why there is no resolution. There is no discussion in fact.
Many football fans – both those who go to games and those who don’t – are influenced by what the media choose as the news. This is what they discuss. Sometimes, some fans do go a different way in their thinking, as for example when key players are injured playing for their countries, but not often. But the issue of fans seeing something other than what is in the media as the main story (such as the variation in the way different referees hand out different punishments) is never covered, and so rarely discussed.
Additionally, the commentators are normally very quick to tell managers where they are going wrong, even though that is fairly illogical, given that few commentators have ever managed a club. That raises again the issue, how come the football journalist can see what’s wrong and see what to do about it, while the coaches, manager and directors of the club, who are paid to see these things and get them sorted, simply can’t do it? That issue is never tackled.
I find that a puzzle, and I write about it, in part because no one else does, but also because most football journalists cover the same ground and come to the same conclusion. And that makes me suspicious; football managements go one way, the media goes another.
Just as I am suspicious of the fact that PGMOL bans players, managers and directors from talking about referees. Why would they do that if there was nothing amiss? And why do players, managers and directors, as well as the media, all refrain from talking about referees. And her I don’t just mean referee errors, but also the number of times the same referee can oversee matches of the same club in a season.
Now our correspondent finds this interest in these referee issues an “obsession” (generally defined as an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind). Indeed, it is true that I comment upon the media’s approach to football, and their lack of commentary on referees a lot, but I am not sure obsession is right.
What does concern me, however, is that the media has a particular approach to football which I think is by and large unified, and also unfounded. By and large they don’t see referees as an issue. Not the fact that some see many more fouls than others; not the fact that some oversee many more away wins than others, not the fact that not the fact that some give out many more cards per match than others, not the fact that some refs see the same team multiple times a year.
So I thought I would take one day’s examples of the way the media handles football, from just one paper. The following headlines all appear on the current football pages on the internet published by the Daily Mail newspaper. As such, they reflect a view of football which is not just tucked in between other stories but is at the heart of their approach.
- Each of these headlines and the stories they link to, focus on football as an institution packed with errors and mistakes – often with the implication that no sane or reasonable person would behave in this way. It is in fact, just one example after another of football being in chaos, run by misguided people who make mistakes, do not behave reasonably, hurt others.
- Thomas Tuchel’s barbed comment to me as he waited to board the team bus.
- Kyle Walker admits he should NOT have left Man City.
- Gary Neville caused outrage with ‘middle-aged white men’ rant,
- England’s homegrown problem… research shows issue is WORSE than when Gareth Southgate raised concerns.
- Tuchel has told young English players they have to prove their worth after it emerged the number of homegrown footballers playing in the Premier League has plummeted.
- Manchester United women’s manager appears to aim BRUTAL swipe at Ruben Amorim.
- Man United flop claims Jose Mourinho texted him EVERY night telling him to leave the club after ‘grotesque’ row.
- My biggest bust-ups with sports stars REVEALED: F1 driver who pinned me against a wall, Man United star who called me a ‘fat p****’ and X-rated comment Fergie didn’t realise was picked up, writes OLIVER HOLT.
- Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s secret life of crime before football stardom.
- Socceroos star faces BRUTAL World Cup warming the bench.
- The failings of Sheffield Wednesday and others amid ‘chaotic’ and ‘shambolic’ rescue attempts and what other clubs can learn.
- We’re still raving about Scotland’s incredible comeback, Steve, but fans didn’t deserve to be criticised for their initial reaction to the performance.
- Pundit claims criticism of Ruben Amorim’s system is ‘EMBARRASSING’ after Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney urged manager to ditch it.
- Body language expert reveals the telltale signs Man United chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe was ‘not being truthful’ when discussing Ruben Amorim’s future.
So there are 15 things wrong with football, all in the same newspaper’s website. It is a story of catastrophic failure in the sport, which implies things are being handled very poorly by those running the game.
This is an extraordinary report of the game’s failures, and the logical thing to ask, therefore, would be why and how it has all gone so wrong. And then how can we put it right? And maybe then, are these the right points to be making, or has the newspaper itself got it wrong?
And I wonder, when I comment on the media, why it is like this. Why are we just getting a catalogue of failure and no suggestions of how to make things better?
And maybe like our occasional correspondent, it doesn’t bother you why those questions are not raised. That’s of course, up to you. Fortunately,, our correspondent isn’t forced to read Unotld (although he often seems to) if those questions all seem irrelevant. All I can say is the questions do interest me. So I write about them.
That’s sort of what happens in our society. When people find things that they think are wrong, they write about them, or maybe use other media. I think its rather a good thing to do..
