Thursday, September 18, 2008
Promoting the Domestic Game
I missed this story in yesterday's Bangkok Post which has attracted a bit of comment on Thai Football forums but in my defence one of my rabbits is feeling a bit under the weather at the moment so I decided to spend quality time with him.
Debate rages around whether or not local media should be producing positive stories about the local game. The assumption, and one I share, is that the only time rags in Bangkok, Singapore or Jakarta take an interest in the football on their own doorstep is when they can get free tickets to see visiting European teams or when they can have a good old fashioned pop.
The local rag here is clueless about the game with their appointed correspondent proudly announcing Indonesia will line up with five midfielders in a 4-4-2.
But it's not the job of papers to write good news about football. It's bad news that sells and anyway anything that can allow the reader to have one over the locals always goes down well among some of the saddos.
Recently here in Jakarta there was a media workshop where 30 clubs headed along to the FA's offices to hear some geezer talk about, um, media. He might as well have talked about flower pressing as social rebellion in 12th century Fiji for all the good it did.
It's down to the FA's and the clubs to get media savvy and involve the papers. No one else. It ain't the job of the Jakarta Post, the Thai Football forum or even this here blog to extol the virtues of the local scene. The clubs and the FA's. Period.
And that will never happen all the while the people who 'run' these things are little more than political cronies been given a high profile position as a reward for support.
Debate rages around whether or not local media should be producing positive stories about the local game. The assumption, and one I share, is that the only time rags in Bangkok, Singapore or Jakarta take an interest in the football on their own doorstep is when they can get free tickets to see visiting European teams or when they can have a good old fashioned pop.
The local rag here is clueless about the game with their appointed correspondent proudly announcing Indonesia will line up with five midfielders in a 4-4-2.
But it's not the job of papers to write good news about football. It's bad news that sells and anyway anything that can allow the reader to have one over the locals always goes down well among some of the saddos.
Recently here in Jakarta there was a media workshop where 30 clubs headed along to the FA's offices to hear some geezer talk about, um, media. He might as well have talked about flower pressing as social rebellion in 12th century Fiji for all the good it did.
It's down to the FA's and the clubs to get media savvy and involve the papers. No one else. It ain't the job of the Jakarta Post, the Thai Football forum or even this here blog to extol the virtues of the local scene. The clubs and the FA's. Period.
And that will never happen all the while the people who 'run' these things are little more than political cronies been given a high profile position as a reward for support.
# posted by Me @ 3:55 PM 
