FOOTBALL AROUND THE WORLD

question I’ve ever asked by a long chalk and he didn’t like that very much either. And again, he stormed off in the middle of the interview!

But as I said, I don’t think people should underestimate that these managers are successful for a reason, because they’re good at what they do and they’re not used to losing. And when things don’t go their way, they find it difficult to take and immediately they’re pushed out in front of the world’s media and everybody expects them to behave with composure. And it’s not always that easy when people turn around and say, ‘well, they’re well paid, they should behave better’. I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it, because it is about the emotion of what they’ve just been through and for some of them it is hard to be composed in the heat of the moment.

Is that not the type of thing that makes for good viewing at the end of the day (Despite being quite intimidating!)?

I’m a great believer in asking questions that are fair and not deliberately inflammatory. But if we just go back to that Klopp example, I was working for 5 Live. The radio listeners have not seen the incident that I have asked about, so I feel it is entirely valid to ask him, did he think his goalkeeper was fouled? And then it’s up to him to answer the question. But if somebody does get upset with you and gives you a hard time, experience tells you that that makes for pretty decent radio, and it’s interesting. Nobody is going to turn off at that moment; they all want to find out what’s up with him, what’s wrong with him, what’s happening there?

All I think that it is essential for all journalists to be is fair in asking a question. I don’t think it is fair to taunt or tease or put a manager in a position where the journalist knows they’re just going to explode just for the sake of good copy or good radio. I do also think players have a responsibility to speak to the media because actually, in speaking to the media, they are talking to their fans. However, many of them, as I said, are young and haven’t necessarily been prepared for that. And some people don’t like it, they don’t feel comfortable speaking in front of microphones, they’d rather let their feet do the talking. So I think there’s something on both sides here. I think football and football clubs have a responsibility for preparing their players better for coping with the media.

Who are the footballers or managers you have interviewed who’s presence really left an impression on you?

One would definitely be Jude Bellingham, just because he is so impressive for somebody who is still a teenager. Funnily enough, I wouldn’t necessarily put Beckham quite as having an aura about him. He was again, very polite and very professional in the way he handled himself when he knew he had to do interviews. I mean, Mourinho definitely be another one. Especially in those early years when he arrived at Chelsea and was the ‘Special One’. I mean, interviewing him was so exciting because you never knew what he was going to say, and he was very good at manipulating the media. He knew what they wanted and he knew what messages he wanted to put out, and he would quite often take the media along that way. Arsène Wenger would be another one in a completely different way. He didn’t have a sort of blast furnace of an ego, which Mourinho has, but Wenger was relentlessly interesting.

Tell us a bit about the work you do with ex-professionals

So, over the last 20 years at the BBC, and also outside the BBC, I do some training with pundits to try to make them comfortable on both television and radio. There are a couple of things to say about this. First of all, training ex sports men and women is actually quite a privileged thing to do because you are working with people who are used to being coached throughout their sporting careers. So they relish feedback. They have spent their entire lives wanting to get better at something and therefore they really are a bit like pushing at an open door because they love receiving feedback. The other thing to say about pundits is that the job is a little bit more demanding than people think that it is. For a long time within sports broadcasting, a pundit received little or no training. And television in particular, but radio to a certain extent as well. It requires the brain to be very relaxed if somebody is going to communicate clearly and well.

talking about and also how the program itself is going to work. I don’t normally go into who I have worked with over the years, but it is fair to say that a lot of the people that you would see on Match of the Day and a lot of the people that you would see on BT sport I would have worked with at some stage over the last 15 or 20 years.

Thoughts on VAR?

I’m a big fan of VAR.It just needs to be used in the right way and with officials who understand exactly what it is there for. And we go back to that phrase which issued often about clear and obvious, and it is there for the clear and obvious mistake. And that is really how it should be used. And sometimes I don’t think it is used like that. I think there have been some improvements, especially since Howard Webb was put in charge of the PGMOL, which is the referee’s body. But there is still a way to go, certainly a way to go. Handball also just needs to be, I think, made clearer. And on that, on VAR, I think sometimes the danger of the super slow-mo replay the moment you are slowing things down to such an extent gives the impression that a player has got lots of time to get out of the way of the ball. Often they haven’t. And clearly there are times where they need to have their hands in a natural position. And sometimes nowadays defenders are tucking their hands behind their backs. But common sense needs to be used on all of that, and I still think the officials are learning about VAR and how to use it properly, but itis definitely something that should continue to be there.

One final thing to mention is that I’ve been incredibly lucky to have done what I’ve done in my career, to have been to the places that I’ve been to. I am genuinely grateful to Haberdashers for the education that it gave me and the life experiences that it gave me!