In between those, I’ve hopefully done some pretty good ones – it’s not for me to say. I have had good ideas and the odd great one that didn’t make it to air (attention the full-size unreferenced post-Keys and Gray elephant in the Soccer AM studio). I’ve had more awful ones.
I’ve hosted shows where I’ve had almost complete editorial control, and ones where I could have been replaced by a performing monkey. I’ve had to host TV shows at every possible height – sitting on a sofa, on a normal chair, on a normal chair behind a desk, on a bar stool in a pub, on a bar stool not in a pub, and standing up when there was somewhere comfortable to sit just out of shot. I complained a lot, but standing did actually work, Murray.
The point being, I have some experience when it comes to reviewing the opening night of the Disney+ coverage of the Women’s Champions League. The Hangout was hosted by Alex Scott with her fellow former England international Lianne Sanderson, the content creators Tyra Mills and Alex Bailess, and quite inexplicably a golden retriever called Barley Boy, who at the time of writing has 82,000 more Instagram followers than I have – I must work on my reels. The show included a quiz about Italy, including guess the Italian name for football and what pasta the reporter in Milan is cooking.
There’s an incredible still image of the panel staring at a load of farfalle on a big screen normally reserved for team lineups or key match incidents. The immediate reaction was a mix of bewilderment and fury from seasoned lovers of the women’s game. Kathryn Batte wrote an understandable critique for the Telegraph.
The broadcaster Flo Lloyd-Hughes posted on X: “Disney’s new UWCL coverage is the closest we’ve seen to CBBC football (derogatory). I wouldn’t be surprised if we see someone gunged for making a wrong prediction or perhaps Raven will make a cameo. Keep stopping to remind myself this isn’t a dream.” Consistent with all the criticism is the truth that the men’s Champions League would never be covered in the same way.
It is perhaps interesting to ask how the team arrived at the concept. Why replace former pros with content creators, why replace tactical analysis with asking what’s the biggest city in Italy? The broadcaster Marva Kreel perfectly articulated one of the issues in her own X post: “I think a lot of the problem with the debates in women’s football broadcasting over analysis and punditry v content creation and gimmicky fun, is that in men’s football you can get both – and in different shows.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
