Tom Mallows' latest piece for this blog. Great stuff as always. Check out his blog.
RCM
Sports News must be relieved. England’s inevitably comfortable win over Andorra finally signalled the end of the English football season and as players, managers and chairman disappear off to sunnier climbs, the news stories quickly dry up.
So Sky have to fill that gaping hole in their schedules. They will often switch to their alternative sports like cricket and golf, but they never have the same appeal as football. So they will always still always try and lead with a football story, however tenuous. Often it is some ex-player like Jamie Redknapp who has bumped into a reporter while on his holidays. All of sudden it’s “Liverpool will win league” with a shot of Redknapp wandering around a Spanish golf course in his flip-flops.
Anyway I digress, the news that Man United had accepted a £80 million bid from Real Madrid for our loveable Cristiano sent Sky Sports News into meltdown, they love stuff like this, and it saved them a job of trying to find stories. The little ‘Breaking News’ ticker went into overdrive, pundits and ex-players were phoned up left right and centre, reporters were sent to Old Trafford, to the training ground, to anywhere!
The highlight though was a piece of citizen journalism in LA where the holidaying Ronaldo was spotted by an eagle eyed American. But all his good work was undone when he ask Cristiano about his move to “Royal Madrid.”
I despair.But despite all the hype I remained rather unmoved by the whole story. It has been dragging on for 18 months now and I think such saturation coverage of the story has made me immune to it; I simply do not care anymore.
I think it is the consequences of it which is more of a story. Real have just spent £130 million on two players, United will have £80 million burning a hole in their back pocket, City are linked with everyone and anyone for obscene amounts of money while Chelsea are, well, just Chelsea.Contrast that with the noises coming out of Anfield regarding limited finances (with Everton having similar restraints don’t expect too many massive deals on Merseyside this summer) and Arsenal not floating with cash, it appears that while much of the football world is learning to cut it’s cloth accordingly, the billionaire boys club is widening the gap to almost unreachable levels.
Just a division below the Premier League you have clubs staring administration in the face, further down the ladder clubs are facing liquidation yet their Premier League cousins are happily racking up debts of £3.1 billion. The balance is all wrong.The Ronaldo deal may be the ‘transfer deal of the decade’ but with none of that money trickling down the football pyramid the rich will continue to feast while the rest are in famine and they will all die a slow death unless something is done.
RCM
Sports News must be relieved. England’s inevitably comfortable win over Andorra finally signalled the end of the English football season and as players, managers and chairman disappear off to sunnier climbs, the news stories quickly dry up.
So Sky have to fill that gaping hole in their schedules. They will often switch to their alternative sports like cricket and golf, but they never have the same appeal as football. So they will always still always try and lead with a football story, however tenuous. Often it is some ex-player like Jamie Redknapp who has bumped into a reporter while on his holidays. All of sudden it’s “Liverpool will win league” with a shot of Redknapp wandering around a Spanish golf course in his flip-flops.
Anyway I digress, the news that Man United had accepted a £80 million bid from Real Madrid for our loveable Cristiano sent Sky Sports News into meltdown, they love stuff like this, and it saved them a job of trying to find stories. The little ‘Breaking News’ ticker went into overdrive, pundits and ex-players were phoned up left right and centre, reporters were sent to Old Trafford, to the training ground, to anywhere!
The highlight though was a piece of citizen journalism in LA where the holidaying Ronaldo was spotted by an eagle eyed American. But all his good work was undone when he ask Cristiano about his move to “Royal Madrid.”
I despair.But despite all the hype I remained rather unmoved by the whole story. It has been dragging on for 18 months now and I think such saturation coverage of the story has made me immune to it; I simply do not care anymore.
I think it is the consequences of it which is more of a story. Real have just spent £130 million on two players, United will have £80 million burning a hole in their back pocket, City are linked with everyone and anyone for obscene amounts of money while Chelsea are, well, just Chelsea.Contrast that with the noises coming out of Anfield regarding limited finances (with Everton having similar restraints don’t expect too many massive deals on Merseyside this summer) and Arsenal not floating with cash, it appears that while much of the football world is learning to cut it’s cloth accordingly, the billionaire boys club is widening the gap to almost unreachable levels.
Just a division below the Premier League you have clubs staring administration in the face, further down the ladder clubs are facing liquidation yet their Premier League cousins are happily racking up debts of £3.1 billion. The balance is all wrong.The Ronaldo deal may be the ‘transfer deal of the decade’ but with none of that money trickling down the football pyramid the rich will continue to feast while the rest are in famine and they will all die a slow death unless something is done.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment