Luiz Felipe Scolari has led the English Football Association on a merry dance and got himself a hefty pay rise in the process. The last week has been rather entertaining for those, like me, who find the English media’s attitude to football rather galling.
The football internationals are an excuse for the English media to engage in the worst kind of patriotic xenophobia. Two weeks ago the Sun — the best-selling newspaper in Britain — published on its front page a picture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel changing out of her swimsuit on an Italian beach. The picture was taken from the back and showed the German chancellor’s exposed behind, with the headline “I’m Big in the Bumdestag”.
You may be excused for not seeing a link with football, but this picture was the opening gambit for the coverage of this year’s World Cup, due to kick off in Germany next month. The Germans were understandably outraged that a newspaper should print such invasive pictures of their leader. It showed a lack of respect for both the office of Mrs. Merkel and her privacy. Bild — a German equivalent of the Sun — responded with a front page, which promised that the Germans would take out their revenge on England by “thrashing” them on the football pitch this summer.
There is a long rivalry between Germany and England. It dates back at least forty years to when England won the World Cup in 1966, the first and only time. Since then, England has regularly lost to Germany in internationals — though never quite as spectacularly as the 8-0 defeat we Saudis suffered at the hands of the Germans. The tabloid coverage when England play Germany is invariably sensationalist and offensive, most often alluding to World War II. Headlines have included “Achtung! Surrender”, “Let’s Blitz Fritz” and “Herr We go”, leading some critics to argue that the puerile pre-match coverage of games like the Euro-96 semifinal between Germany and England were directly responsible for the violence that ensued.
So the build-up to this year’s World Cup has started, but this last week the press coverage has been dominated by the fiasco surrounding the English Football Association’s search to find the next England manager. For those of you who don’t read the English press, let me fill you in.
The current England manager is a Swede, Sven Goran Erikson. He was appointed in December 2000 and was the first foreigner to be offered the England job. Erikson has had what can only be described as a turbulent run during his five-year tenure, and most of this turbulence has been a result not of antics on the football pitch but of his activities off the field. Not only have his amorous adventures kept the salacious press busy, but he was also famously caught by “the Fake Sheikh”, an undercover reporter of the News of the World, who lured him to Dubai and exposed his willingness to quit the England job for the right price.
Enough was enough and the announcement was duly made that Erikson would quit the England job after this year’s World Cup campaign. And so the search for Erikson’s replacement kicked off.
For weeks, there were four candidates being put forward and they were distinguished by one fact: They are all British — not quite all Englishmen as Martin O’Neil are from Northern Ireland.
But, then Scolari or Big Phil as he is known came on the scene and a deal was almost signed. Scolari is a first-rate football manager. It is enough to know about him that he managed the winning side at the last World Cup. But, he isn’t English, not even British, but, a real hot-blooded foreigner, a Brazilian no less! And so we have seen headlines of the “this is a betrayal of English football!” type fill the papers, with varying degrees of righteous indignation being put on display. My favorite reason for why the job should not go to a foreigner was the comment that only an Englishman could “understand the English passion for football”. The more serious commentators objected on the grounds that when Erikson was appointed it was with a promise that the next manager would be English.
Erikson’s appointment was supposed to be no more than a stopgap, giving homegrown managers the time they needed in order to grow into first-rate managers worthy of the England job. But five years on and a quick look at the English premiership shows the paucity of English-born managerial talent. Of the five clubs currently at the top of the league, only Manchester United has a British manager, but Sir Alex Ferguson is Scottish, not English, and he is close to retirement age.
There were some voices who dared point out that if England want to win — which presumably they do — then they have a much better chance of doing so with Scolari at the helm, than with any of the other contenders for the job. But those who praised the signing of Scolari barely had time to rejoice as less than 24 hours after it was announced that Jose Felipe Scolari had been offered the England job, Scolari announced that he had changed his mind. He had tasted three days of being under the glare of the English media, with reporters delving into all aspects of his private life, and with the awful reality of waking up to twenty reporters camped outside his front door every morning. Three days were enough. He didn’t like it, his wife didn’t like it. England would have to do without his talents
The media intrusion is the reason Scolari has given for pulling out of contention for the England job, but there were other factors too.
He is currently the manager of the Portugal national team, a job he rather likes and would like to keep. His little dance with the English Football Association looks like having landed him a pay rise and a renewal of his contract with the Portuguese Football Association. He has also received physical threats against his family.
But perhaps the media’s role was the most significant, not just because of its intrusion into his family life, but because in just three days it gave Scolari a taste of the xenophobia that football can trigger.
