I do like my football. That’s the game played with the feet and a ball, not hands and an egg; that’s Handegg and only played in North America,

Watching football on TV is very easy in North America, though, and it’s cheaper than if you were watching in the UK. The number of games on offer is very good, as is the quality of the video feed. Well, I say that, but here’s the rub, the commentary is awful.

Games from the English Premier League (EPL) are broadcast in Canada through a streaming service imaginatively called “FUBO TV” (named, I think, by some drunk marketing people after a good afternoon out at the pub). Fubo gets its video direct from the EPL using the “International Feed”, that is for broadcast in English speaking countries that are not the UK. The EPL use a variety of professional match commentators, who are journalists I believe, and a former professional player as a “Summarizer”. I don’t know that there are any rules on impartiality when creating this feed inasmuch as it will be going out to various non-UK countries and isn’t subject to the UK’s broadcasting standards. As a consequence, the commentary and the summarizing is simply awful.

You can bet Beglin was summarizing on this game at Anfield. Slippy Gerrard having a pop at Everton’s goal.

As an initial example, take the number of Liverpool games summarized by Jim Beglin. It seems that every time the reds run out in a televised game, good old Jim is there to provide the insight. That would be OK except that Jim Beglin played 98 professional games for Liverpool in the eighties, and he absolutely adores everything Liverpool, and Liverpool related. Cut him in half and he has the word Liverpool running through him like a stick of rock. (Google it). He has improved over the years and no longer relates everything to his Liverpool playing days, but he still roots for the reds and it’s frankly embarrassing to have to listen to him. Worse than that, the match commentators will often take the lead from the summarizer and amplify the outrageous partisanship. I can only assume that Jim lives in the North West of England somewhere, and finds it easy to get to Anfield. There can’t be another explanation as to why they let such favouritism go unchecked.

A far worse example is that of match summarizer Andy Townsend. Now Andy has played for my team Chelsea 110 times, but he clearly left under a cloud because it’s virtually impossible to get to hear him say anything positive about Chelsea, and it doesn’t matter who their opponents are. He’s being doing it for years, too, as I have bad memories of a game where Chelsea played Stoke City, in Stoke, and Townsend was all but coaching City for about two-thirds of the game. Chelsea won anyway, but I really couldn’t fathom why he was so negative. Things have continued like that for season after season, and the only time he relents is if Chelsea are winning well and there’s not much time left to play. The game with Newcastle United this past weekend was a case in point, with Andy disparaging everything Chelsea did, until they went 3-1 up and the game was sealed. We thankfully don’t get Andy summarizing as much as we used to, at least not Chelsea games.

I think the commentators and summarizers read the back pages of the tabloid newspapers before they start work. They keep regurgitating the current gossip and the speculation, 90% of which is nonsense, but I guess they do it for the same reason the tabloid hacks do it, to sell advertising space. Like the people who dreamed up “FUBO TV”, most gossip is formed in pubs by journalists with nothing better to do. I was going to mention the “Connor Gallagher to be sold” story, but it’s pure fiction so not worth mentioning.

More tabloid bollocks, this time from the New York Times’ The Athletic. Pure fiction.

Anyway, words are important and footy fans are not (all) stupid. They no more like to hear favouritism from the commentators than they enjoy seeing their own team lose. I shall be penning a furious letter to the EPL if I hear Townsend summarizing a Chelsea game again this season, but apart from me letting off a bit of steam, I really don’t think it matters to the EPL. Sad.