FOOTBALL FOCUS
John Dykes
In case you hadn't noticed, the football-reporting press has been getting something of a bad press lately.
Most notably, Joe Kinnear launched his interim stewardship of Newcastle United with a blistering assault on a couple of reporters for UK dailies, abusing them personally in foul language and then describing their colleagues as "slimy".
Next, Sir Alex Ferguson declared he would never again talk to the press (outside of mandatory Uefa pre-match press conferences) as long as he is in charge at Old Trafford. "You will never get any help out of me again," he promised (expletives deleted). "From now on, no matter how many miles you travel to get an interview, you won't get one."
Both Kinnear and Ferguson took offence at what they considered to be inaccurate or unfairly critical coverage by newspapers. Should they venture into the blogosphere, they would find similar complaints penned every day of the week by football fans.
At the BBC's 606 site, a furious Manchester City fan rails against perceived media negativity over the club's recent rise to the top of the Rich List. He cites four recent headlines: "United rubbish City's Ronaldo talk", "Buffon laughs off City link", "Kaka brushes off City rumours" and "Fabregas dismisses City link" as evidence of a mistaken, short-term view of what is happening at Eastlands. He may have a point.
Meanwhile, over at the Birmingham Post's SportBlog, a writer wearily points out that a stellar weekend of results for clubs from the Midlands (two weeks ago) was yet again overlooked by a football press concerned solely with London clubs, Liverpool and Manchester United, and events in the Northeast.
Liverpool fans have long complained of an anti-Rafa Benitez agenda from the London-based national press, Newcastle fans have complained of being ridiculed by "snobbish" southerners and anyone who takes on the role of West Ham manager invariably ends up lamenting the fact that 75% of London-based footballer writers seem to support the Hammers.
But one should hardly be surprised by all this. Supporting a football team is, by its nature, a highly subjective occupation and one riddled with historic rivalries, illogical antipathies and sheer bloody-mindedness. Show me a pundit/analyst/reporter who actively supports a football cub and I'll show you someone who regularly loses sight of the objectivity his job is supposed to demand.
To be truthful, Britain doesn't know how lucky it is when it comes to its press and its sporting allegiances; even if individual journalists or publications may be accused of bias, they never come out and overtly support one club or another. Were they working in Spain or Italy, things would be very different.
Last season, as Internazionale were romping to the 2007/08 Scudetto with just one league defeat in the calendar year, the club launched a "silenzio stampa" or silent protest at alleged press bias.
It followed a controversial win over Parma and Roberto Mancini's bizarre omission from the shortlist for the Oscar del Calcio Coach of the Year award. Mancini and the club said they felt the media in general were painting the Nerazzurri as being dominant only because of the Calciopoli match-fixing crisis which weakened their most immediate rivals, AC Milan and Juventus.
Inter had no qualms about making such an accusation because it is accepted, as a matter of course, that newspapers in Italy do have a natural bias towards a certain team or region.
The leading sports daily, Gazetta dello Sport, is based in Milan and will always favour that city's clubs over Juventus, while Tuttosport is Turin-based and naturally does the opposite. Roman clubs have their causes championed by Il Corriere dello Sport. It is also quite acceptable among journalists and editors at these and other newspapers to openly declare their support for a certain team.
In Spain, the best-selling sports paper, Marca, is a royalist paper that is completely biased towards Real Madrid. Marca journalists turned up at a Euro 2008 press conference staged by Portugal so they could "present" Cristiano Ronaldo with a Real Madrid shirt bearing his name on its back. Another Madrid-based paper, As, is number two in terms of circulation.
Over in the Barcelona corner, the third- and fourth-best sellers are Sport and Mundo Deportivo. They never waste an opportunity to ridicule Real Madrid through a headline.
These are just two examples of countries where the press operates along different lines from the UK model.
Italian and Spanish fans may argue that theirs is the better system because it is more transparent.
But then, they might also argue they have the better football league too. That is one argument that will never be resolved.
It's a matter of personal taste, to be honest - a bit like the way one chooses where and how to read about the game. Because, at the end of the day, it comes down to choice, and Heaven knows there's plenty of that about.
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