Latest Articles
Why RvP Leaving Isn't The End Of Days
Post comment
Of course, if Robin van Persie leaves Arsenal then it really won't reflect well on the club, but Nick Miller argues that his fitness record means it won't be the end of the world...
16 Conclusions From The Champions League Final
81 comments
Is parking the bus such a dreadful thing? Nick Miller wonders why defensive tactics are considered lesser forms of winning, and salutes the extraordinary Didier Drogba...
All Articles
The thought of an increasingly xenophobic media pushing a barely concealed 'England for the English' sensibility while preaching in morally superior tones about the evils of racism would be amusing if it were not so troubling. Doubtless, the irony and the tone is not being lost on those 'foreigners' who bring so much colour and quality to football in England.
The nationalistic undertone has manifested itself in a few different ways in recent times. One strand relates to a sense that growing foreign influence in the game - particularly at ownership level - is depriving English managers of opportunities with the bigger English clubs. The sense of entitlement here is almost jaw-dropping - and ignores the fact that if domestically produced managers were really the real deal, then they would have no problem in getting the jobs that sections of the media seem to regard as almost a birthright. It also ignores the fact that many of England's biggest clubs have given opportunities to English or British managers over the years who have failed to make an impression. Think Graeme Souness and Roy Evans at Liverpool, or Bruce Rioch at Arsenal and compare their achievements to those of Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez and Arsene Wenger. Picking your manager should be about quality and not nationality.
Amusingly, when the media recently championed a man into high office, Roy Hodgson lasted only six months at Liverpool. Hodgson for Benitez - talk about a lowering of standards, not to mention expectations. And yet many of those who so pilloried Benitez over his one bad season still suggest that somehow Hodgson - a man with a paper-thin 30-year CV - was harshly treated when he was shown the door.
Another troubling manifestation of the media hypocrisy relates to the treatment of the Luis Suarez case. Their willingness to unquestioningly and uncritically back the procedures and judgment of the FA in the matter was jarring. So often in the past, the FA have be in the sights of the hacks - often characterising them as bumbling incompetents. But this time, to a man, journalists seemed anxious to jump into bed with the FA on the matter - as if in endorsing the verdict, they were displaying (like the FA) their own anti-racism credentials to a vulgar and ignorant outside world.
But perhaps I should not be so surprised at their lack of critical rigour. After all, the football media has never been all that big on highlighting or investigating the fact that the FA oversees a game where black players seldom rise to managerial and coaching positions in clubs and where Asians are disproportionately conspicuous by their absence at almost every level. Suarez was easier meat.
And now with Fabio Capello's decision to quit the England job, those pushing a jingoistic agenda will no doubt celebrate their biggest scalp yet - oblivious, or ignorant, of the fact that their campaign will ultimately drive down standards in the English game.
Consider that as the highly decorated and respected Capello walks away, the media leads a populist campaign for the current English managerial flavour of the month Harry Redknapp - the winner of one serious trophy in his 30 years as a football manager - to replace him. I suppose discerning England fans should be grateful that Harry is in a rich vein of form of late, for if Capello had quit a year or 18 months ago, the cause of Hodgson's (no major achievements in 30 years as a manager) would have been championed.
Now I'm not trying to suggest that Suarez was not worthy of censure or that Capello was totally in the right. I'm merely trying to highlight the insidious way in which sections of the football media have handled such stories in recent years - preaching racial tolerance while pedalling barely concealed xenophobia against the foreign influences that have so embellished the game in England.
Paul Little - find him @little_football on that there Twitter
Post Comment
