Friday night and the media is busy reporting the behaviour of hundreds of brain dead English idiots behaving as brain dead English idiots do. Getting pissed, fighting and chanting about the IRA, ISIS and those old favourites “Fuck off Europe, we’re all voting out” and “We’re English, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it.” Fair enough, I say. UEFA say that they won’t be punishing anyone for what happens outside the stadium I hope they were watching what happened in it on Saturday night.
Not that you would know from watching on ITV, but there was serious crowd disorder after the England v Russia game when large numbers of Russian hooligans charged England fans, trampling over women and children as they did so. I mention ITV because their coverage was so bad I had BBC Radio Five Live on at the same time to tell me what was actually going on. Mark Pougatch was busy interviewing Ian Wright, Peter Crouch and Lee Dixon, prattling on and on about the game, at exactly the same time that things were kicking off. Mark Chapman gave a brilliant radio running commentary on what was going on and it was terrifying, what with England fans clambering over barriers to get away from the marauding hordes, some facing huge drops to escape – and ITV was still ignoring it.
“There’s Gary Cahill, looking as sick as a parrot” (or words to that effect), said Clive Tyldesley. Meanwhile, I was searching the internet trying to find French TV news bulletins and very quickly I found a couple. Unlike ITV, there was raw footage of serious disorder. Meanwhile, ITV was interviewing Eric Dier and Wayne Rooney. This must have been happening a few hundred yards away. How could they not see it?
I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not believe ITV censored the scenes of violence tonight. I just think ITV is crap. They do things on the cheap, there is plainly no-one skilled enough in basic journalism to see a good story when it’s right in front of them and, as with the commercial arm of the media, they are far more interested in the bottom line.
It is unarguable that England have a few hundred idiots who turn up for the trouble. They are, in effect, the provisional wing of the Leave EU campaign, hence the anti-European chanting which probably had Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage clinking their Champagne glasses in celebration. Russia’s hooligans appear to be terrorists rather than ‘mere’ hooligans.
Media coverage is skewed. It loves a ‘good’ hooligan story and it really goes to town with a good English hooligan story. And the stories sell papers. Russian hooligans – maybe that’s not such a good story. But why not?
If it had been English hooligans who stormed the stand and terrorised Russian fans, you can bet your bottom dollar that the media would be calling for our expulsion from the tournament. And there’s the rub.
UEFA has said it will not take action on matters that took place outside the stadium, but tonight’s thuggery happened inside it. The police and the courts should come down hard on anyone who is guilty of criminal activity wherever it takes place and UEFA should come down hard on Russia. If it means kicking them out of the tournament, then so be it. They need to learn, pretty damn quick, that you don’t behave like that, especially if you have ambitions to hold the next World Cup.
