http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/silver-lining-to-fittler-fiasco/2009/06/26/1245961404519.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25702756-5001021,00.html

Agree

This is a real positive for football from many angles. The attention has been great and people like Alan Jones and the CEO of Sanitarium (who make Weet Bix) have stood alongside him and backed him 100%.

It certainly hasn’t diminished the reputation of Cahill, Verbeek, the Socceroos or the FFA in any way.
I think that News Limited has gone over the top in their usual fashion and have not increased their readership or credibility by any degree at all.

You blame this on a conspiracy theory “…an agenda at the Daily Telegraphy to discredit football…”

How do you explain the SBS reporting then?

P.S. Great analogy of the fighting drunk, by the way.

Cant critisise a writer who has so far racked up over 530 posts via three articles.Ka’ching.Ka’ching.
The fans love it. But this formula is not for me.

Good post. I think the EPL Socceroos expect to be worshipped when they arrive back in Australia. The big man returns – that kind of thing. It’s a common theme with EPL stars when they return to their home country to play alongside their less heralded international team-mates – e.g. Benni McCarthy and SA, Berbatov and Bulgaria, Roy Keane and Ireland, etc

I get the impression that many of them expect a medal for deigning to turn out for their nations.

I’m sure Tim’s a nice bloke and all in person, but surely being an English Premier League star he’d have been the subject of false allegations before… I guess personally, I’d have expected someone like him to be thicker skinned and think that his reaction achieved the opposite of what he’d have intended. The Telegraph is like a drunk looking for a fight, it’s sometimes just best not to react to them…

For anyone who knows Tim Cahill and the way he normally acts with the media and the public, straight away it was obvious this was a beat up. I have met Tim Cahill, and there is not a more down to earth, caring individual in Australian sport. I am sure that if the Daily Telegraph’s version of events were true, Tim would be the first to put his hand up and say he had done wrong. No doubt in my mind. But the way Tim responded, as an individual who gives his all to the Socceroos and their fans, showed a man who was made to look completely humiliated by a newspaper that has always had questionable agendas and he took matters into his own hands. I for one applaud Cahill. If he did nothing wrong, which he, the establishment, the police and the FFA all believe, he has no right to apologise, or interact with the media who beat up a nothing story to sell some more papers.

As for the interview with Mel McLaughlin, I hope Tim has contacted her to apologise. While she was representing the media who beat up the story, many people watching at home wouldn’t have realised this, and thought it was a personal attack. I know it wasn’t but Tim should apologise to her for the people that might have.

“just highlighting the patheitic farce that is sydneys so-called major daily….home to a variety of fooball codes..
and not -surprising that football and general sports followers see it with utter contempt and sub-zero credibility….”

Actually, I think you’ll find that the sports section of the Tele is probably the most balanced part of the paper. The lack of credibility comes from employing tactics that would make conservative papers in the McCarthy era blush.
I still remember their headline when David Hicks was captured: “meet David Hicks, the young boy who would grow up to be A TRAITOR” (above a photo of Hicks as a child). Their incredible contempt for journalism is clearly present in it’s sport section, but it is by no means even close to being the worst part of it.

Most of my colleagues and friends would read the SMH and either or both of the Australian and the Fin Review as daily fodder. That is certainly my own starting point.

Our exposure to Tele stories is more likely to be when they are mixed into the News.Com website news that we might glance at throughout the day.

I’m sure its the same in Melbourne with anyone with even a quarter of a brain preferencing the Age (and maybe one of the national papers) over the Herald.

Much as I love football I’ll take a million attacks on it from such papers if those attacks are diverted from the crap they write about the really important things in the world.

Keeper11 – as others have said the Tele is not the voice of Sydney. In fact one of the great things about this city is its resistance to the very notion of having one voice (or one culture, or one football code, etc)

Viscount – I must admit your thought also crossed my mind. Much as we love football we also have to be realistic and expect that a share of our Socceroos will be prats. The environment, money, hype around any professional sporting person is never conducive to positive, humble behaviour. We can’t let our pro-football stance make us mindless apologists for our favoured players; sometimes we simply can’t avoid that a few of them will act like turkeys.

Just take a look at how much coverege RL gets in the DT.. It is amazing.. I reckon almost EVERY day there is a front page push weather its a story, or pushing calendars, cards, liftouts etc..

That is a big point you guys miss. ‘

Today Friday..and surprise…league makes it on the front page of the DT ..again..

Someone correct me…but is that now 2 weeks STRAIGHT !! that league has been front page in some feelgood / promo/ ‘footy card ad ‘ headline ??

have nothing against league..don’t mind it either way..

just highlighting the patheitic farce that is sydneys so-called major daily….home to a variety of fooball codes..
and not -surprising that football and general sports followers see it with utter contempt and sub-zero credibility….

At this stage it’s simply an overreaction to suggest that this is compromising our chances in South Africa, which remember is a number of dressing room clashes away yet! There’s simply no evidence that there has been, or is likely to be, any impact on playing performance.

The Dutch national team of course has a long tradition of imploding along these lines just prior to (or during) major tournaments. But even with our Oranje links, I think this concern is illusory at present.

Lucas Neill, for instance, is infamous in London for his narcissism. And Cahill has become very weird since he started getting hyped up.

You’ve got to remember that most of these EPL footballers live on a completely different planet. In the England squad, most of them will rub along okay because they’re all bonkers and no one knows any better. But I can well imagine that for some of the more normal, less famous players in the Socceroos squad, guys like Neill and Cahill must seem like the most arrogant men alive.

(And yes – the “I’m so desperate to give back to society” schtick is always a sure sign of a rampant ego).

At the end of the day, they are a paper that have no real ethics and just print stories TO SELL NEWSPAPERS OR GET PEOPLE TALKING. If that means exaggerating certain off-field scandals by footballers then that is what they will do.

So by having this massive RL culture it is very easy to gang up on other sports knowing that you are the number 1 paper in the country, it is quite a powerful form of propaganda, no?

This might not be foxtel’s views or news limiteds, but it is definately something from within the DT itself.

I personally don’t really read the Tele, and haven’t for a while, so it’s hard for me to know if they really go about trying to clear the names of players after vilifying them in RL, but I guess it wouldn’t be surprising. What I find hard to understand though, is why the Telegraph would honestly have an agenda against soccer, when you’d think it’s business interests should dictate it supports the A-League and the Super 14 (given that Fox more or less owns both of them – much more so than the NRL). In reality it should be pumping them all up…