THE INSIDE SCOOP

Increasingly, sports journalism relies on press releases, tweets, institutional websites and prearranged and tightly policed press conferences for the news that sports fans seek daily. The doors to the decisionmakers, coaches and the players are gradually being shut. Almost all clubs now generate their own news, but this is filtered to serve their own interests and not to properly inform. It means that often reporters do not get to the bottom of sagas they should be properly explaining to the public. This is particularly true in soccer where issues crop up regularly but are never fully investigated by the sports press. It is often a lack of resources or experience that is to blame, but mostly because of the firewalls that have been built to keep questions out. The public is the immediate loser but, in the long run, the sport suffers too as the lack of accountability and transparency casts negative aspersions on the game itself. That leads to a loss of credibility, which impacts on the game’s ability to attract followers and sponsors. South African football is a much easier environ for reporters to work than the English Premier League, for example, where access to role-players is almost negligible outside of press conferences. But doors are closing as marketing agendas trump that of public interest. This is not a healthy state of affairs. The press does not help itself with rumours now deemed worthy of print, a lot of assumptions made by reporters, less fact-checking and not much analysis. You can almost understand the growing wariness. The first obligation of the media is to report first hand and it was to this end that KICK OFF sent Fabio De Dominicis to Egypt to cover Mamelodi Sundowns’ glorious triumph in the Champions League. He went independently and under our steam, but cleverly embedded himself in the same hotel as the club to be able to bring our readers first-hand insight. Sundowns could have blanked him and denied him any access. Some clubs would have done that. But they appreciated the task he had to explain to readers back home the magnitude of the achievement of the winning the continent’s top club prize. So they welcomed him and allowed him to speak to players and coaches, helping us to produce this special edition that celebrates a wondrous moment in the history of South African football. The real winner is the soccerloving fans who now get to read and see what went on behind the scenes in Egypt and learn the inside secrets of success. We hope you enjoy this tribute.