"Broadcast was in the public interest," declares SKY
Monday, November 29, 2010 at 12:49PM Football pundits and journalists were up in arms this morning after SKY Sports 'carelessly and irresponsibly jeopardised the World Cup bid' by broadcasting Liverpool losing 2-1 to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
The 18 time league winners and holders of 5 European cups have recently fallen from grace, having their Champions League place usurped by a resurgent Spurs and suffering a poor run of form that sees them struggling to maintain a place in the top 10 of the Premier League and playing Paul Konchesky at left back.
However, many feel that their dreadful form should have been hidden from the prying eyes of FIFA and certainly not broadcast live only days before the World Cup vote.
Ian Ridley of the Mail on Sunday said, "Liverpool Football Club are a national treasure and their image as one of the best teams in the world ever is vital to England winning the rights to host the World Cup in 2018. FIFA don't care about small clubs like Spurs, Everton and Aston Villa. They want to see the usual top 4 winning all the time just like they do in other European countries. SKY have shown a blatant disregard for football fans all over the country by airing this defeat."
Phil Thompson, a SKY pundit who happens to also support Liverpool, added, "I have handed in my resignation to SKY. The World Cup is far more important that their petty agenda to increase viewing figures. By all means show the game, but at least edit out the last 5 minutes and any footage of Paul Konchesky. Or just arrange the fixture for after the vote. Any FIFA executives that saw that on Sunday will be outraged."
SKY's actions have even prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to issue an apology to FIFA via the Downing Street Twitter feed. The PM wrote:
@FIFA_Committee Because we support free media we could not prevent this broadcast. However if you re-watch the game you will see that Spurs got lucky lmao. Everyone in England is working hard to make sure Liverpool are back in the top 4 by 2018 #youllneverwalkalone
In order to limit the damage caused by the broadcast the FA have dispatched an envoy to FIFA HQ led by Prince William and Gerry and the Pacemakers who will be handing out signed Liverpool shirts DVDs of 'that' European Cup Final in 2005.
by guest-blogger, Fox Mulder
-
For the Spurs v Liverpool match report 'So how do you beat Spurs exactly?', please click here.
Reader Comments (120)
Funny article, by the way! :O)
Welcome back Mr. Fox. Might inspire me to get off my 'arris if i ever actually finda spare moment.
Good work fella, lovin' the liverpool collective sense of humour failure.
Who would have thought it, Boris was right about something! LOL
Desktop - Nice 1 mate.
That's 5.28, not 5.31......
Come on red boys wake up, you are heading down, whilst we are heading up. who said we had twelve men on the pitch, your not mr wenger are you ? [i did not see the penalty]. you were out played and out classed and if you realy think you deserved the win then just put your joint out. Enjoy your future in the championship ha ha ha.
C.O.Y.S.
@ Paul F responding to my comments on page 1.
I am fully in agreement over your opinion of Berbatov and Carrick, they are both vastly over-rated and Spurs fleeced united for their transfer fees (a nice experience as a Liverpool supporter). I do remember various comments from Spurs fans when both players left (and Robbie Keane for that matter) saying how it proof that spurs are a selling club. Gareth Bale seems to be a lad who is level headed and realises that the grass isn't always greener so I believe he will stay for the long term. As for VDV he's admitted himself that he only joined spurs for the Champions league football. If Spurs don't get that this year, he could be on his way sooner than you may like.
Keane was a nightmare at Liverpool, used to being the big fish in the little pond it just never worked out. As it happens Spurs pulled a blinder selling him to Liverpool for £20m, the mistake was buying him back!!
I think you will find that yes, we've sold Mascherano and Alonso, two massive massive losses, because they were two of our five world class players (Torres, Gerrard and Reina are the others). I'd say Spurs only have 1 player in that bracket (Van Der Vaart) so your not that much better are you! I'll come to your SQUAD later.
Your comments regarding Konchesky and Poulsen are fully justified, we know they're garbage, we said so before we signed them. If anything Hodgson is tainting the opinion of us scousers about cockneys, its just as well we realise that most cockneys aren't as thick as he is!
Your right again on our now previous owners. These men invested £10m in Liverpool over 4 years (check the transfer fees!) People lambasted Benitez for apparent 'Lavish' spending, yet understand that some quality players in the decent squad he assembled (that got to a CL final in 2007 but lost to AC Milan) had to be sold to bring in better players (Bellamy sold for £12m to help fund £20m Torres, Sissoko sold for £9m to help fund the £18m transfer of Mascherano) Yes mistakes were made (Aquilani and Dossena were a disaster!) but a manager who made in excess of £25m for the club every season (except his last) when he got us into to Champions league quarter final at the very least is surely allowed some mistakes.
It hurts after the defeat yesterday, but Spurs have to be congratulated. Redknapp (a man I can't stand mainly due to his comments regarding our previous owners, apparently being good owners) also has to be congratulated for assembling a SQUAD as strong as any in the PL. There is tremendous strength in depth in many areas, but other than VDV spurs have no WORLD CLASS PLAYERS (Bale falls into the potential world class catergory). In my opinion, you still need a goalkeeper and Assou-Ekotto is the only player Dirk Kuyt has ever skinned.
Excellent joke on the FIFA scammers Fox
And most spurs fans here don’t really care about beating Liverpool you’re not that high on our radar to worry now the beating lot from south London the week before now that was the sweet :)
@Cooper Tottenham are a PLC and as such they cannot pay more than there turn over/ income allows that’s company law so as far as 2012 laws coming in to effect were one club totally set and fine for those regulations, so please think before making silly comments a lot of clubs are going to be breaking those rules unless they bring their house in order.
Dazzling write-up, Fox M. Funny as hell, but absolutely brilliantly exposing double standards and self-centered delusions through well applied sarcasm. My hat’s off to you.
Blimey. Famous scouse sense of humour indeed. I speak as someone involved in the calm down calm down humour area. No Spurs fan denies Liverpool's history but we have a pretty glorious one too and but for mismanagement in previous decades would have been more consistent. As it is we are showing the kind of grit old Liverpool sides used to show. We were the best side on sunday. No doubt. The article is a clever attack on the Murdoch-loving Sky wankers and talksport morons trying to rubbish the bbc over panorama. Liverpool fans have more reason to hate Murdoch's cronies than most. In the meantime get real, Spurs are the most exciting side around at the moment. Love us. Everyone does really! COYS!
not funny, not in the slightest - you got the simpleton vote though so well done
wow you stirred up a storm spooky i am still laughing . good article
This was the only time reading Davspurs comment made sense the first time , normally read it at least 5 times.
'DML the open forum for balanced reporting and freedom of speech'.
We even found a humourless spurs fan, if that's not balance or self deprecation then I don't know what it is.
What's that?
Someone masquerading as a spurs fan?
Well that's never happened before?
And definitely not on a blog, surely? (cue leslie nielsen)
I want to thank all the Scousers who've showed up here for pointing out what a sad lot of entitled deluded crybabies you all are. As a yank, I just want to point out that you deserve the Red Sox ownership. You sound just like Red Sox fans: like them you are underachieving whiners living in the past.
Blimey, Seddo... It's like you're desperately trying to convince yourself of something?
Thankfully, our current squad seem to like playing here and long may it continue. VDV has already said that at some point he wants to return to Hamburg as that was where he felt most at home but that's fair enough and hardly the language of a CL hunting fly-by-night. Anyway, what will be, will be.
As for world class, have you watched Modric recently? It might have been difficult, he was a bit of a blur as he ghosted through your defence - But there are plenty in the Spurs line-up you'd welcome with open arms at Anfield at the moment, so really don't go down that route.
We're enjoying our 5 minutes but do believe there are good things happening at our club that bode well for the future. We have a board that is positive and wants to achieve success in a sustainable way and a management team who seem, for all their faults, to be getting a bunch of perennial under-achievers to believe in themselves.
Why shouldn't we be happy? Enjoying our form isn't being disrespectful to Liverpool (Though I didn't realised we had to check with you first) it's simply us enjoying ourselves. We know we could be back to mid table any moment but somehow, I don't think we will be... And neither do you. Maybe that's why you're all getting your red knickers in a twist?
BTW, Uncle Woy is from Croydon, which is about as close to Cockney origins as Runcorn is to Hope St. God love you for your sweeping generalisation though guv'nor.
saddothekoppite. I think you'll find Bale was included in the Fifpro team of the year shortlist this month. I think that makes him officially world class. ;) Anyway, sometimes it's not all about how many world class players you can pack into your team, especially if the non-world class ones are light years behind them in ability. Spurs have a balanced squad with true quality all over the pitch and good cover in every position. I'd take that any day over two superb players and a load of garbage. It's about how you play as a team. Having a team of world class players didn't stop madrid getting anihilated last night did it?
Why are there so many non-spurs complainers on here? Are you a football supporter or a complainer? Support your team, don't complain about everyone and everything else. Support your team. (on your own boards, do you have your own boards?) The clue is in the words here, SUPPORT.
COYS!
Is Andy Gray the best Sky can get?? It is amazing that for an experienced 'old' footballer he comes out with some...no...a lot of crap. He should put his brain in gear before he opens his mouth!!
respect! Your 'aving a giraffe
What a joke artical! It was the BBC that done the own goal.
Spurs Vs. Liverpool was a fantastic game and change is good. The top 4 will change more and more as time goes on and it should do.
Brazil don't win every World Cup! If they did it would be very boring!
Monday Night Football was always better with Sky and they should be given the World Cup rights and the BBC banned.