Open Writing

What covering the Olympic Games has driven home is just how difficult it is to report on football in England.

The Olympics are the world’s biggest sporting spectacle and showcase yet you don’t have to negotiate the obstacles and hurdles the footballing authorities place in front of the media.

I have been privileged to cover many of the biggest sporting events and have extensive experience of the workings of the media.

While Premier League chiefs claim to be guardians of the best league in the world, I would also argue that it is also the most heavily regulated.

The restrictions imposed by that body have increased noticeably in recent years. And with each passing season, it is becoming more of a struggle to report on football as clubs also increasingly dictate the flow of information.

Newspapers, agencies and other forms of media have to obtain an annual licence from Football DataCo, the regulatory body for the Premier League/Football League, to gain access to matches. And for that to be granted you have to produce evidence of your work.

In addition organisations/individuals have to have public liability insurance of £5million to cover the Premier League and £2million for the Football League and also carry special football authority identity cards or a recognised press card.

Once you are granted authorisation to cover football, the access you gain is diminishing by the year.

Managers are seemingly not mandated by the Premier League to attend press conferences and the likes of Messrs Ferguson, Redknapp and Allardyce have boycotted them when they have had disagreements with the media.

There is also limited access to players which varies enormously from club to club with hardly any providing unrestricted for all journalists and broadcasters.

It is as though the Premier League, with its billion pound broadcasting and sponsorship deals, doesn’t need the written media.

That might be the case at this moment in time when football is at the height of its popularity. But most aspects of life run in cycles and there will come a time when the football authorities will need to court the media in the event of its popularity waning.

And in the case of the current economic downturn continuing for any significant length of time, that could be sooner rather than later if fans don’t have the cash to go to matches or pay for their subscriptions to the satellite television channels.

In fairness, UEFA cannot be criticised as they are nowhere near as heavily regulated and their media operation is slick as opposed to being bogged down by bureaucracy.

Managers are mandated to attend pre and post match press conferences – clubs are fined if they fail to do so – and the media has access to the players through a mixed zone through which they must pass.

UEFA appears to appreciate the need for the media to be given the tools with which to do their job.

And it is a double-edged sword because UEFA needs favourable publicity to keep the sponsors of the Champions League sweet and on board if it is to remain the world’s most prestigious club competition.

The UEFA model appears to work well so why doesn’t and can’t the Premier League adopt such a format here? As I see it, the restrictions imposed by the footballing authorities here are curbing the freedom of the press to do their job as they would like to do.

I would also commend Adrian Bevington and his media team at the Football Association who, through my dealings with them, try their utmost to co-operate and access for matches at Wembley is excellent. And despite the FA often being criticised, I have found them a pleasure to work alongside.

Here in Beijing everything is media friendly and the International Olympic Committee, organisers of the event, appear to value the media far more highly than the footballing authorities which view us as an irritant which has to be tolerated.

There are mixed zones at each sport which means there is unrestricted access when it comes to interviews, though in high-profile events such is the demand that there is often a mass scrum for quotes.

After the problems I regularly encounter in football, it is like being a kid in a sweet shop having such unlimited access to some of the world’s top sportsmen and women.

Obviously with 28 sports taking place, many simultaneously, it is physically impossible to be in more than one place. But BOCOG, the organisers of the Beijing Olympics, have journalists at each event gathering quotes and other information which is available either on line or in paper form.

Indeed, the Olympic organisers do as much as humanly possible to make our jobs as easy as possible, something I find refreshing

May I regale you with one particular tale which just wouldn’t happen if I were covering Manchester United or neighbours City back home.

I sought to interview Chris Killen, the former City and Oldham footballer, who is representing New Zealand, about his experiences in the Olympics.

But as the Kiwis were based outside Beijing playing their matches in Shenyang and Shanghai that was never going to happen face-to-face.

I contacted the New Zealand Olympic Committee through a general ‘contact us’ section on their website with my initial inquiry.

The response was immediate with the mobile telephone number of national team manager Jim Hogg provided and a message to liaise with him.

He was only too happy to help and called over Killen, who now stars for Scottish giants Celtic, to his phone for a chat as the squad were having a quiz at the time.

Can you imagine a similar inquiry to the Old Trafford press office and a e-mail reply with Sir Alex Ferguson’s number? Not in a million years!

That also reminded me of an incident four years ago in Athens when covering the 2004 Olympic Games.

Then I discovered belatedly that the Australian team had reached the baseball final and their squad included a lad called Phil Stockman who spent his formative years in Chadderton before his family emigrated.

I contacted their officials on the day of the final thinking I might catch up with him after the game.

I was amazed to be given the telephone number of player’s house and informed Phil would talk to me that morning. Can you imagine having a quick chat with Ronaldo or Rooney on the day of the final of the FA Cup or Champions League? Not a chance!

That sort of co-operation was once commonplace in English football but which seldom happens now as clubs have their own websites and the biggest their own television channels and they are able to dictate to a large degree what information is made public.

It is not many years ago when covering Manchester City I was able to call in at their old Platt Lane complex and interview players as they went back to shower after training.

But after the move to their new home at Carrington that ceased and now there is a press conference with the manager and occasionally you may get to speak to a player who the club nominates.

And what a far cry to the days when Peter Gardner used to cover City in the glory days of the 1960s when he says the manager’s secretary would furnish him pre-season with a list of all the players’ telephone numbers. That continued until the early 1990s and it is hard to believe that ever happening in the current climate of controls over the media’s reporting on football.

It’s just a pity the English footballing authorities are not represented here in Beijing – at least I don’t think they are – because they could learn a lot about how to run a media operation which is both slick and successful.

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FOOTNOTE: England's Premier League football season kicks off tomorrow.