City fly-on-the-wall show to enrage Sky
THE launch this week of Amazon Prime’s behind-the-scenes documentary series covering title-winners Manchester City last season is likely to cause major ructions.
The access given to the Amazon cameras was unprecedented in English football and included frequent trips to the dressing room to film Pep Guardiola speaking to the City players.
Indeed, the £ 10million series opens with Guardiola giving an emotional address to his players at half-time of the 3-0 Carabao Cup final victory over Arsenal at Wembley.
Premier League broadcasters pay billions for live rights, but are not allowed inside the dressing rooms on match days.
And Sky, who have bankrolled the Premier League since the start and made their views clear about Amazon’s privileges frequently last season, are going to be raging when they see the Amazon series.
City say Amazon were helped by their Spanish production team Media Pro coming from Barcelona and winning the trust of Catalan legend Guardiola, who had worked with them before.
Amazon are looking to do another Premier League project, but they are unlikely to find a club as accommodating as City again.
ARSENAL fans will not be impressed that head of recruitment Sven Mislintat, who joined from Borussia Dortmund in December, was not at the Emirates for the home defeat by Manchester City last Sunday and is on holiday this week.
The transfer window may have closed but continental markets are still open and Arsenal have a number of players they need to move on.
Arsenal say Mislintat is in touch during his time away and the club did all their recruitment early on, bringing in five players. Also, they add, it is not Mislintat’s responsibility to shift players on.
THE RFU, beset by problems off the pitch, are losing HR director Lucinda Pullinger, who has completed a redundancy process that will see 62 employees lose their jobs. Pullinger, who has decided four years is enough at the RFU, was the Twickenham executive who urged RFU councillors last February to stamp out their sexist behaviour, which included calling female members of staff ‘sweetheart, love and gorgeous’. She is joining property solutions provider The Instant Group, run by former England forward Tim Rodber.