A Welshman in Milano: Final word on the Euro2004 demise of England.

lunedì, giugno 28, 2004

Final word on the Euro2004 demise of England.

I've been taken to task somewhat over my comments about the England v Portugal match, which England lost during a penalty shoot-out after the match itself ended with a draw. The reason that I was criticised was because of my comments about the press attack on the match referee, Urs Meier, because he disallowed a 'goal' that English fans would have liked to have seen allowed. Well, enough to say that I'm not attacking England because I'm Welsh at all - rather, I was attacking the press opportunism where they attacked and were rude and aggresive toward the referee for having made the decision to disallow the goal, correctly as it happened - as well as the on-going violence of the English supporters both overseas and in England itself. I stand by what I said about both issues and feel that it must be pointed out that UEFA has similarly raised it's own questions about the behaviour of the English press as well as the more blinkered English fans that chose to believe the stories put about by the English gutter press in such a racist manner.

The question that should be seriously addressed in the UK at the moment is more to do with what the press consider to be 'news' and how they present it to their predominantly English readership. A brief look at today's gutter press shows that the Daily Mirror considers the most important story of the day to be whether or not Real Madrid player and England captain, David Beckham, is going to be separating from his ex-pop star wife, Victoria. This story is followed by an item on the "Big Brother" TV show, a sex quiz, a story about a young lady out to snare a 'man' into her bed and then, finally, an item about the Iraqi handover by the US led forces to the US approved new government. Obviously they are setting their readers priorities here. I only hope that the xenophobic tendancies of the English media can be countered by reason and logic before the English effectively disengage themselves from the rest of the world by believing the nonsense that these sectors of the press would like to present as 'real life'.