soccer+media

=**The Media In the World of Soccer**=

Soccer, or Football as it is known in most fo the rest of the world, is the most popular sport in the world and it is the most played in the world. Although we may not see it much here, as we are innundated by sports news of different types, hockey, baseball, American football, basketball, etc... The rest of the planet is also swamped in media about soccer. Particularly, in Europe, where soccer to some is more than a mere sport, it is a culture, a religion almost. People have done some pretty spectacular things, based some pretty important desicions on outcomes of soccer games.

Just as the media plays a main role in our everyday lives, and in much of the things we come in contact with, it plays a major role in soccer as well. The many soccer broadcasting mediums all over the world, each can give their own individual take on one singular event and in some cases they have a major effect on what other believe, sometimes on actual outcomes. Take, for instance, this year's World Cup tournament, which was held in Germany, in which Italy triumphed in the final, defeating France in the lottery of penalties. The win capped an incredicble tournament for the italians, who showed that they were over their past failures in which their strategies were dependent on star players, and that this year, they played as a unit. It is rather difficult to pick out one player amongst the group who stands out as the best, as they each did their parts individually. However, despite this result, and Italy being crowned champions of the world, the media focused on another event in the final match, which one could suppose would 'sell more papers' or 'attract more viewers'.

The recent example of media effects on soccer.
This event was the famous headbutt of France star Zinedine Zidane on Italian defender Marco Materazzi. The world was in shock as to why a player of Zidane's calibre, on the verge of retirement, playing in arguably the most imporant game of his career and his last, would stoop so low as to act in such a manner.

Almost instantly, the media revolved around this situation and the headlines, tv images of the episode and so on were repeated over and over for everyone to see. The media quickly wanted to perform their investigations on this, noticing how greatly it was of interest. All the while, was a deserving Italian squad winning the trophy they had been dreaming about since childhood, celebrating a historic and impressive victory, yet this did not receive as much media coverage as the 'Zidane incident'.

That game being all about Zidane led media groups to naively assume that there must have been another motive, and all heads turned to the victim, Materazzi, who suddenly became the culprit. The media splashed the papers of Materazzi's 'bad-boy' image in Italy, which has garnered him the nickname 'the butcher'. Suddenly all fingers were pointed at Materazzi, "he had said something terribly wrong" they all claimed.

And thus followed a barrage of newspaper articles and tv specials on what could have been said. The brittish tabloids were said to have had lip readers decipher the horrible words utter, which included insults to Zidane's mother and sister, to his Algerian Islamic background, and even going as far as combining these with the word "terrorist".

This is just an example of how the media can blow things way out proportion, especially when it comes to something so 'important' as soccer. The outcome of this event seems to have been affected by the media reports, as for this horrible gesture Zidane received a 3 match ban (even though he was already retired) and Materazzi received a 2 match ban. All this for what?? The comments which were made were nothing more than (and both parties agreed this was what was truly said): Materazzi during the match was tugging at Zidane's shirt, which prompted Zidane to reply "If you want my shirt so badly you can have it after the game" to which Materazzi replied "I'd rather have your sister". Thats it!! Thats all that was said and that led to that horrible act by Zidane.

Well, let's recall some more details that the media forgot to mention. In World Cup 1998, Zidane famously got sent off in the match against Saudi Arabia for stomping on a saudi players' delicate area. Also, in his Juventus days, he had received quite a number of red card (which lead to 1 match bans for each card) for a series of offenses, one of which actaully inlcuded headbutting. But how quickly the media forgets such small details and how quick they are to inaccurately portray events. media type="youtube" key="zAjWi663kXc"

The media in the soccer transfer market
Throughout the days of soccer transfer, in which players switch over from one team to another, some deals happen before their even born. Such was the case when Michael Carrick's transfer over to Manchester United. United had expressed interest, and the media instantly assumed the deal was in the works and there were estimated figures being thrown around, as well as possible contract agreements, etc... Some cases the media can help deals happen, in other cases, the lack of privacy can put an end to a deal. Media can have positive and negative effects to the world of soccer as it is in other aspects of the world.

I guess they're right when they say....there's a good and a bad to everything.