A Dangerous Precedent

Australia’s hosting of the Men’s Asian Cup is less than six months away, and as excited as football fans should be that the country is hosting its first senior major tournament there are many who are feeling a little left out. Those fans who live outside of Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria, as they have not been invited to be a part of the party.

There were eyebrows raised several months ago when it was announced that Italian Alessandro del Piero was to be an ambassador for the Asian Cup. (The Wrong Choice) Many felt that of all the imports to the A-League Japan’s Shinji Ono would have been a far better choice having actually played in the tournament and won it.

If this was a strange choice the news that the organisers have appointed Media Ambassadors has to be the most bizarre yet; and raises questions over the integrity of those accepting such a role. 

Sports coverage the world over has become decidedly one-eyed in the past twenty years, and as witnessed with the recent coverage of the Commonwealth Games if you want to know about athletes from countries other than Australia, good luck. Not only does this fly in the face of Australia’s claims of being a multi cultural society, but for genuine sports fans is incredibly frustrating.

Never before have we heard of a competition having Media Ambassadors, and it raises the question as to how much honest comment viewers are going to get on the tournament. The television presenters and pundits are there to give insights and honest opinions, and not simply spruik the tournament. They are there to add to the viewing experience and impart information to the viewer. Good or bad it is their job to report it, and highlight what went wrong or right. Sure they are there to offer entertainment, but if it is a shocker of a game, the viewer can see that it is, so please do not try and hype it up as being anything else.

According to the press release Simon Hill, Les Murray, Mark Bosnich, Robbie Slater, Craig Foster and Andy Harper have all taken on such roles. As have Channel Seven’s Jim Wilson, Fox’s Adam Peacock and Tara Rushton, Stephanie Brantz of the ABC, Lucy Zelic of SBS and Network Ten’s Mel McLaughlin.

The press release went on to quote Local Organising Committee CEO Michael Brown as saying “Our media ambassadors will play a very important part in that, conveying their own sense of excitement to their viewers and fans so that collectively we create a buzz around this tournament that will never be forgotten.”

One would expect that the on air performances would be being monitored closely by the media watchdog as to whether these ambassadors are simply spouting propaganda; It is interesting to note that no journalists from the print media have been signed up.  

This is a very dangerous precedent, one that could change the way sport is viewed from hereon in. How much can what we are being told be trusted? Is this almost akin to the “cash for comments” scandal? It is too early to tell. It does however raise the question as  where independent media coverage has gone? 

It was the late Jim Morrison who said “Whoever controls the media controls the mind.” No doubt the Asian Cup organising committee are big Doors fans and have taken heed of his comment. 

   

 

Game Set and Shut Up

There were many things to be happy about in the Men’s final of the Australian Open.

First of all what a superb game of tennis, played by two true gentlemen and sportsman, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The match went five hours and 53 minutes and was almost an hour longer than the previous longest match in a grand slam final. That was the four hours and 54 minutes Mats Wilander took to beat Ivan Lendl at the 1988 US Open.

The second plus was that Channel Seven showed the game live in Perth. What a welcome change it was to be able to watch a major sporting event life as it was happening in Perth.

As mentioned both men were respectful of each other after the match, and the organizers, sponsors and all who made the vent the success it is each year.

Now maybe we are becoming slightly grumpy as we get older, but do the post game speeches have to be so long? It was abundantly clear that both players were spent forces, cramping up and struggling to stay on their feet. It took a while for chairs to be brought out for them so that they could sit through the speeches and the relief on both players’ faces when they did arrive was immediately evident.

We know that the sponsors want their money’s worth of air time at the end of the tournament, and to be fair the gentleman from Kia, the official sponsor spoke superbly, and eloquently, but is it necessary to have the head of Tennis Australia waffle on so long?

Fans and players alike really are not that interested in hearing from sports administrators at such events, they want to hear from the victor and the vanquished. Let us hope that the one thing to come out of this fantastic final is that the post match speeches need to be shorter.

A Lack of Etiquette

When you have received a free ticket to a dinner it seems a little churlish to criticise, but when the event is to acknowledge excellence in sport within Western Australia one has to point out areas where the event let itself down.

The WAIS athlete of the year awards was according to the invitation a ‘black tie’ event. Yet the Chairman and the Executive Director failed to adhere to this dress code.

Just so that they are aware should they read this, ‘for a man, the major component is a jacket, known as a dinner jacket (in the Commonwealth) or tuxedo (mainly in the USA), which is usually black but is sometimes seen in other colours.’ Other items that traditionally fall under the ‘black tie’ code are: A low-cut waistcoat or cummerbund, A white dress shirt with a turn-down or wing collar, A black ribbed silk bow tie matching the lapel facings, shirt studs (optional) and cufflinks, Black dress socks, usually silk or fine wool and Black shoes, highly polished or patent leather Oxfords, or patent leather court shoes. Although in recent years the enforcing of these has been a little more relaxed.

Certainly one gentleman from the ABC could do with learning that an open neck shirt is far from acceptable.
But dress aside the insensitivity and lack of understanding of etiquette from Mr. Chris Young from Channel Seven, who was at the microphone to introduce the Inductees to the Hall of Champions and Hall of Legends was very poor show.

Having announced all of the inductees and having had them all return to their seats he asked all of the recipients to stand, and then proposed a toast to their success.

Etiquette should in fact see them remain seated and all of the guests rise to toast them and acknowledge their achievements, it is incredibly ignorant to toast while seated on such an occasion, so one black mark for that.

However the biggest faux pas in this gesture was the fact that one of the inductees was wheelchair athlete Louise Sauvage, who obviously could not stand. Hopefully such mistakes will not be repeated and we can ensure that this is the prestigious event that it deserves to be.

Sports Fans Need to Speak Up

For many years there has been a radio station in Perth that has called itself the “Sports Leader” yet its behaviour in recent times has dragged sport back in time, rather than carried it forward into the future.

This station is a “broadcast partner” to two major sporting clubs in Perth, namely The Emirates Western Force and the Perth Glory. A very privileged position and one that carries with it a great deal of responsibility.

Rugby Union fans are about to witness a similar fate to Perth Glory fans where this station opts to pick and choose which games it covers, and if they clash with ‘the sport that we don’t mention’ then the best you can hope for are updates.

This year they have not even sent a commentator interstate, using the Glory’s new media manager for the game against Melbourne Victory and Newcastle Jets. Instead they choose to sit in a studio in Perth and call the action off the Fox Sports television coverage.

This is not good enough, and sports fans in Perth deserve better. The Minister for Sport should step in and make sure that rugby and football fans are able to listen to games in their entirety across the metropolitan area. However, as much as that would be a vote grabber, he is unlikely to take such a stance.

So the only way fans can gain some parity with the ‘sport we don’t mention’ is to find a voice and use it. Or we will see a similar situation to the one that football suffered with Channel Seven in the ‘90’s where they bought the rights but chose not to broadcast the games.

To make matters worse the governing bodies of these codes based on the East Coast do not monitor the coverage, and so when it comes to the big games, they once again get the nod even though they have done the sport a disservice.

With Hindsight an Interesting Appointment

Following the announcement of the new board members at Football West I was asked if I knew if the Chairman Mr Kevin Campbell AM, who was appointed in the role by Frank Lowy, had been at Channel 7 when the network screwed the game of football.

I did not know, but have since checked.

For those of you who were part of the “Nobody screws soccer like seven” campaign you may be interested to read that Mr. Campbell was from 1991 to 1999 Chairman and Managing Director of TVW Enterprises Ltd (Channel Seven Perth).

In 1998 Channel Seven bought the rights to the old NSL as it believed that a revamp of the league was in the offing, but when this did not eventuate chose not to show soccer/football at all. Instead they loaned the rights to the ABC and only showed some finals on their network.

Looking at the dates and his position with Channel 7 at the time it would appear that Mr. Campbell would have been part of that decision making process.

Knowing that now, it seems strange that Mr. Lowy would make such an appointment when one of his first tasks when coming is as Chairman of the FFA was to dissolve the disastrous Channel Seven deal.

What is most galling to fans of the World game is that Seven Executives were quoted a few years ago in a government survey into Pay-TV, that shutting down soccer did benefit its own coverage of AFL.

So any conspiracy theorists out there, this should make your weekend!