Public Relations in the football world

Like most people, over the last two months or so, I have watched the world of English professional football make as many PR mistakes as it is possible to make. Firstly Liverpool go into a state of complete denial about the Suarez - Evra incident.

Right from the time Suarez was charged by the FA, Liverpool FC, led by Kenny Dalglish, decided to take the initiative before they had received the report from the FA. What they should have done is keep quiet and just stated that they were very unhappy about the situation and that Suarez intended to fight any charge. Daglish's statements and the wearing of the stupid tee shirts hardly helped the situation. Once the hearing was over Liverpool decided that any outcome was going to be wrong and again started the PR nonsense. Once the verdict and he punishment was known, instead of waiting for the report, which when read by any unbiased person suggests that the verdict and punishment were fair, Liverpool started saying that the hearing was biased and unfair. They even accused the independent inquiry of being merely doing the FA's bidding. They managed to conveniently forget that the inquiry was chaired by leading QC. QC's are not generally known as being in anybody's pocket.

Much more of that then Private Eye's renowned solicitors Sue, Grabbit and Runne would surely have become involved. Instead of accepting the verdict Liverpool dilly dallied and instead of missing 8 games Suarez missed 9. Even after all this Dalglish still wouldn't let it go.

At his TV interview after last Monday's game against Spurs, Suarez's first game back, he was still going on about the ban. He should read the report again and realise that it could have been more serious. How did the media-savvy American owners ever allow it to get as far as it did.

The Football Association has joined the PR disaster club.

By taking weeks to decide that John Terry should be stood down as England Captain they have ended up with no captain and now, no coach. Capello has resigned because he believes he should have been consulted and in any event doesn't believe that the captaincy should have been taken away. If the FA thought that any captain of England couldn't be captain whilst facing any sort of criminal charge then they should have this policy in place so that all players, coaches and staff are fully aware of the situation.

What I can't understand is why, when the police brought the charges why didn't Terry's agent persuade him to put out a statement saying somehting like "I am totally innocent of these charges and I aim too prove that, however to avoid any further unnecessary publicity and continuous questions about the England captaincy, I have decided to stand down as England captain until the matter has been dealt with" Most people would have applauded the decision.

Only Fleet Street would have disappointed; they would have lost another subject to write about.

09th February 2012

Tweet