13 Dec 2010(Mon)

Unless covering representatives of their own country against another, sports journalists are generally supposed to be neutral, but it is unrealistic to expect anyone to follow something like football with genuine passion and yet not develop personal sympathies. ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley once told me that the relationships he and former commentary partner Ron Atkinson had built up with the squad and staff of Manchester United in press conferences, mixed zones, and private conversations during their late 1990s Champions League forays ensured that the emotion in their voices was very real indeed when ‘that night in Munich’ reached its dramatic conclusion. He also freely admitted that United’s success had been good for his career (coming as it did in Tyldesley’s first season after replacing Brian Moore as the network’s leading commentator), and the same was surely true for Liverpool’s European crown in 2005 and the various other continental cup runs enjoyed by English sides in the latter half of the last decade.

 

This is no bad thing. In fact, the increased depth of information that can be procured through such relationships is usually most beneficial both to the journalists’ employers, and to their end readers, listeners, or viewers. A national newspaper or 24-hour sports news channel will often have correspondents and columnists stationed in various key locations throughout the country. The reporter based in Manchester, for example, will attend matches and news conferences at Eastlands and Old Trafford, and develop contacts that bring him or her closer to the inner workings of City and United (and, perhaps, other local clubs like Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers as well). Much of this individual reporter’s volume of work may end up with a rather narrow focus as a result, but the idea is that the sports pages always have a go-to guy with the right inside information no matter whereabouts in the country the latest news is breaking.

 

However, this is only either effective or indeed acceptable if the producers and newspaper editors themselves remain impartial, and determine an appropriate balance of coverage to portray the day’s events of interest to the audience as a whole.

 

Having made similar complaints before, I shall try to be succinct in summary. Kashima Antlers may have been the outgoing three-in-a-row champions, have the Zico connection, and be closer as the crow flies to Tokyo, but their slipping out of the automatic Asian Champions League (ACL) places on the final day of this season was NOT a bigger story than Gamba Osaka clinching second. It certainly wasn’t anywhere near as big a story as Cerezo Osaka qualifying for the ACL in their first year back in the top flight after three seasons in the J2 wilderness. So why – as sadly predictable as it was – did the achievements of the two clubs from this city get so roundly ignored by the Japanese ‘national’ press over the past week or so?

 

Worse still has been the constant obsession with FC Tokyo since their relegation was confirmed with that dismal defeat at Kyoto Sanga last week. They’re not even a big club, for God’s sake! Fine, they’re based in the capital and have a lot of name players, but they’ve never once finished in the J. League’s top three and – as discussed last time – played so poorly all season that the drop down to J2 is richly deserved. So how about a shout for Vissel Kobe – another small club but one that went unbeaten in seven and won 4-0 at Urawa Reds to ensure their survival at the last? No, of course not. If we’re going to mention that game, then the story is obviously that the Kanto team lost.

 

Seriously, come on. Urawa haven’t won a trophy for three years now, they wholly deserved to be hammered by Kobe, and a final position of tenth is an accurate reflection of the current side’s ability. They are, of course, a big club and perhaps even Japan’s biggest. A significant proportion of the close season coverage will be devoted to their attempts to rebuild (which have begun already with the managerial appointment of Željko Petrović, and the signings of Marcio Richardes and Mitsuru Nagata from Albirex Niigata), and perhaps justifiably so. But where there is real achievement to be celebrated, it is in the public interest that the national media does so.