The unacceptable behaviour of the football commentators

It’s been three years since the FA first launched its RESPECT campaign; a drive to eliminate the abuse referees receive from players, managers and supporters. Yet there seems to be one group of people that get away with verbally slaughtering match officials every week. The sports commentators.

Game after game worth of commentary is broadcast on our televisions, through our radios and now via the internet every week. Not many of these will go without comments made about decisions made by the match officials. The FA RESPECT campaign has an agreement that states ‘I will show respect to others involved in the game including match officials, opposition players, coaches, managers, officials and spectators.’ This has to be followed by everyone taking part in the game. Are commentators part of the game?

At the weekend commentators Guy Mowbray and Mark Bright were quick to point out a mistake made by a linesman in the Burnley v Leeds game broadcast live on the BBC. Then when the camera cut to the lino they seemed to take much delight in mocking the facial hair he was sporting stating he had got into the spirit for movember. This is not only plain rude but demeaning to a man who is just doing his job, without this man there would be no game of football in the first place.

Discussions during the match analysis in Match of the Day now heavily feature decisions made by the referee and his linesmen, mainly pointing out mistakes they have made. These programmes pull in millions of viewers each week many of who would be young children who enjoy the game. If they hear their idols, Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen, making comments like this and getting away with it then this passes on the message that ill-treating a referee is an okay thing to do.

After highlights on the Football League show at the weekend there was a montage of mistakes made by referee Peter Walton followed by a discussion about how he had a bad day at the office. This just isn’t necessary and shouldn’t be happening.

Players and managers are constantly being fined by the FA about comments they make to the press. Just yesterday (Tuesday) Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas was fined £12,000 for comments he made about referee Chris Foy in a post-match interview. The day before Stoke manager Tony Pullis was fined £10,000 for comments he made about referee Lee Probert. If managers are fined so heavily then why aren’t commentators
because their comments are also being broadcasted through the media?

It seems the FA needs to step in and make a point if they want to really tackle behaviour towards match officials. They police comments made to the media but they don’t police comments made by the media. Surely this is a massive flaw in their dream plan.