Bruno shouldn’t feel he’s got to say sorry
FIRST, an apology. Last week I failed to fill this space with a column. For years I’ve been a reliable source of, well, words, on a Friday morning. I’ve always assumed my responsibilities and I’ve always embraced them under pressure, but last week I failed to hit the target.
In truth, I was all written out after filing a piece about Pep Guardiola being a man who won’t apologise
– and here I am saying sorry as a result. Alanis Morissette would certainly see the irony in that.
Despite Pep’s reservations, there are many in football who are eager to beg forgiveness right now. Although, judging by the reaction to Bruno Fernandes’ toe-curling apology for his penalty miss against Aston Villa, the Manchester United playmaker will soon be saying sorry for saying sorry.
In hindsight, perhaps Villa keeper Emi Martinez was on to something when he urged Cristiano Ronaldo to outrank his compatriot and take the 94th-minute spot-kick that would have earned United a point.
After all, if CR7 had fired his penalty deep into the Stretford End, the ball would have been more likely to write the word ‘sorry’ than the man who kicked it.
Bruno’s grovelling cut no ice with Gary Neville, the perma-exasperated former United skipper who took to Twitter to accuse modern players of insincerity and using ‘PR people’ and ‘comms managers’ to maintain a social-media presence.
‘The apology culture that’s engulfing football would be okay if it came from a genuine place,’ he wrote. ‘However more often than not it’s a smokescreen and diversion tactic designed to mask a crap performance by experts!! Lose a game = crisis comms meet! How do we spin this one our way?
‘[My] strong advice to players. If you’re going to say something after a game, either go on tv (I accept players don’t always want to) or post a video
on social media where everyone can see it’s you.’
Having seen Fernandes’ team-mates (or their evil comms managers) rush to post sympathetic replies to his mea culpa with a degree of coordination seldom seen in United’s attacking play, it was hard not to agree with Neville.
And yet, if high-profile footballers employ crisis-management tactics to deal with the aftermath of on-field errors can we really blame them? It’s not as if fans have proven to be an understanding, phlegmatic cohort when faced with their shortcomings.
Gary’s own career as a footballer played out before the advent of social media and, while his TV work and dabbles in coaching will have put him in the firing line, as a 46-year-old he is likely better placed to cope with it.
But, after the racist abuse aimed at young men like Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho in the wake of their shoot-out failures in the Euro 2020 final, would you blame them if they employed experts in PR to shield them from the vitriol?
The suspiciously slick, over-the-top apologies may miss the target in much the same way as Fernandes’ penalty, but when it comes to football, fans and social media, it’s not really the players who need to be saying sorry.