TV Hell

There's been so much activity to write about on the pitch in the last few days that I haven't had much time to examine the performance of our friends who dwell in the TV studios and media centres. Shame on me. Let's begin with yesterday's match between Togo and Switzerland. Even the usually excellent Radio Five Live managed to irritate me in the preamble for this one, telling everyone that it wasn't the most mouthwatering clash in the World Cup, and that it might be 'a good day to take a long lunch'. Ok, I'll accept that any game involving Switzzzzerland has possbilities for being a snorefest; as you would expect from the Swiss, they don't commit to attacking very often. But what do our friends at Five know about Togo? If their plan had been to play 6 up front, or to leave out the goalkeeper, the earliest any of their pundits would have known about it was when the game kicked off. In any case, this game should not have been devalued whoever was playing, as it was a vital game in a wide open group. And for their information, it was actually a fine game, very open, with both sides creating plenty of chances, and with Togo actually looking the better side for long spells of the game.

Mind you, Radio Five's knowledge of Togolese football was probably exhaustive compared with that of the three stooges covering the game for BBC 1, namely messrs Dixon, Desailly and Shearer. The score at half-time was 1-0 to the Swiss, despite Togo having more of the game, missing a hatful of chances, and suffering a terrible decision by the referee not to give a penalty when Adebayor was blatantly brought down. A fair assessment would have been that Switzerland could feel slightly fortunate to be ahead having taken their only chance, and Togo only had themselves to blame for poor finishing, yet there was enough there to suggest that Togo could still win the game if they could bring their shooting boots out with them in the second half. However, when Ray Stubbs asked the three wise men for their thoughts, these were the responses:

Alan Shearer: "Well, the Swiss are infront as we expected, but I think Togo have done really well"

Marcel Desailly: "Well, Switzerland took their chance, but I think Togo have done very well"

Lee Dixon: "I think Togo have done well".

Well cheers lads, I was in the dark about the finer tactical points of this game before hearing your enlightening comments, thank goodness we uninitiated morons have your expertise to call on. Could they be any more patronising? "Togo have done well"? Awww, bless their cotton socks, didn't they do well, aren't they lovely. Please, they are not disabled (not that that would excuse such condescending language), nor did they win their place in the World Cup by entering a competition on a packet of breakfast cereal. They are all professional footballers who had to win a qualifying competition to get there, just like England and every other team in the World Cup. At least show them the respect of analysing their performance in the same way you would anyone elses. More to the point, footballing intelligentsia, if you don't know what you're talking about then kindly shut up! I would have far more respect for someone who, when asked to give their opinion on Togo, or any other country they have clearly never seen, replied: "Do you know Gary, I haven't the faintest idea. I've never seen them. I wouldn't like to predict what is going to happen. All I know is I'm looking forward to finding out". Even better of course would be if they had a pundit who had actually gone to the trouble of doing a bit of research about teams and players that they are being paid large sums of money to give their 'expert' opinions on. Maybe I'm asking a bit too much now.

However, this leads us on to the BBC's worrying use of Marcel Desailly, apparently, as their African football specialist. Now Desailly was born in Ghana, but he moved to France as a 4-year-old, and played his entire 18 year professional career in Western Europe, before retiring in 2004. Which probably means he has seen about as much African football as Lee Dixon and Alan Shearer. I can understand Desailly being asked to enlighten everyone on Ghana, as it would be logical to think he might take an interest in the fortunes of the country of his birth. Yesterday however, Ray Stubbs was asking him to give us an insight into everything about Togo. "How do you think the Togolese players will be feeling Marcel?", "What will be the Togolese tactics for the second half?" If the BBC had a Spanish ex-footballer on the panel, would he be presumed to be an expert on Portugal? I find this use of Desailly offensive, why after all should he have specialist knowledge of anyone except France? Modern TV coverage of the World Cup is unrecognisable from years gone by, with enhanced digital quality pictures and sound, virtual reality pitches, tactics explained using bizarre computer graphics, and interactive highlights you can watch again and again. And again. Yet when it comes to talking about less well-established nations and their players, TV is still stuck in the sixties. Except then, I suppose it would have been ok for the presenter to say 'Come on Marcel, you're a black bloke, tell us how your mates are going to play!'. Well some of the questions asked of Desailly during this World Cup smack far too much of that if you ask me.

In addition to this, why is it that whenever an African team plays, the TV commentators feel the need to make endless reference to their colonial past? During the Angola v Portugal match, the phrase 'Lords and Masters' was even heard on more than one occasion, which is astonishingly inappropriate. Since independence these countries have had to strive to establish their own identities once again, so wouldn't it be nice to hear them referred to as something other than 'a former colony of...'? And it's strange, but I haven't heard nearly as much talk of colonial history during Australia's matches.

Whilst I am not asking ex-footballers to suddenly become historians, it would be nice if they were at least aware that nationals of all of the countries taking part in the World Cup will be watching TV coverage in the UK, and that they might just have a little more tact. On the whole, it would make their lives (and ours) a lot easier if they restricted their comments to things they do actually know something about. Mind you in the case of Lee Dixon, this could make for a very quiet programme.

Sounds good to me.