Why football on TV is unwatchable

Football on television has become unwatchable, at least with the sound on. Inane commentaries and state-theobvious punditry has seen to that.

No wonder so many former footballers want to work in the media when they retire. It’s the chance to earn mega money without the need to be good at the job. For some that’s a natural progression from their playing careers.

In the case of Micah Richards (right) it appears you just need to be able to laugh loudly. I can’t remember anything of note he’s ever said (or written as remarkably in a paper staffed by talented scribes he has a column every Saturday in the Daily Mail).

Richards openly laughing at some reasonable points made by Roy Keane (top player, top pundit) after the Manchester derby recently was one of the cringiest moments of the season, and I once forced myself to listen to Steve McManaman for an entire 90 minutes of a Liverpool game.

It’s a tough call between McManaman, Andy Hinchcliffe, Jamie Carragher and Lee Dixon for worst co-commentator.

If you weren’t aware of Hinchliffe’s ordinary playing career you’d assume he was Messi-standard given the constant carping and criticism he confuses for insightful intelligence. That’s surely what the broadcasters are aiming for when they employ ex-internationals and old Premier League players?

That’s what Sky used to get from Gary Neville before he became a useful idiot for the Labour party and a high profile bodyguard for his old teammate Ole Gunnar Solskjaer when he was ensuring Manchester United wouldn’t challenge for anything important.

How Neville has the nerve to criticise any coach/manager is beyond me anyway given his own embarrassing spell as a head coach in Spain. It’s like Carragher condemning someone for spitting in public.

Highlights shows are no better. Match of the Day can only safely be watched on fast forward unless you want to be angered by the pathetic punning of Gary Lineker (£1.3 million a year) or the ‘he should have scored that’ standard of punditry offered by Alan Shearer (£500k a year). Shearer incidentally is another failed manager.

Cut out the endless repeats of key incidents, the waffle, the child-like larking about, the cheesy, soft interviews and the ineffective analysis and Match of the Day only lasts about 20 minutes.

All of this seems obvious to me and yet broadcasters appear to be doubling down on their destruction of what should be a feast of entertainment. Often at live games there are now two co-commentators accompanying the main one who appears to be reading from a script anyway.

And action is interrupted just so a former referee can to agree with the on-field decision of the match officials.

Show-off referee Mike Dean has now announced his retirement so it’s only going to get worse.