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16
Tue, Apr

Typography

THE EDITOR: Why is it that our electronic media and our advertising media remain in a totally primitive mode when doing football coverage?

As we settled to watch, on TV 6, the match TT vs Italy, our local experts were talking to us. Then I realised that the teams were already out and the Italian National Anthem was being played—in a small window showing in corner of the screen.

I wait to see our anthem played. Yes, there we are in that little window, one of the players mouthing the words, but as the local experts were unconsciously still talking, we could not hear anything.

Did they “pull back”, shut up, and let us hear our National Anthem, see our Official Match Flag being shown, and see our small support contingent singing? No, they cut to a series of advertisements.

How far out of touch are you all, really? As the series of ads continued, we missed the Team line-ups, the Toss, which you all contrive to mispronounce as “Torse”, and the Captains’ exchange of Pennants. These are part of the match, which every First World, and probably every other Third World but us, TV station will carry in their entirety. And we do not even understand that.

Then we had, at halftime, our two local experts declare our disallowed “goal” to be valid. Not only that, but they described the slow motion replay in specific terms to “prove” that the goal was valid. And they were totally wrong! And worse, insistently wrong. After the match, not in the least showing any concern, they acknowledged that a referee had called and told them what “Offside” is.

I do not want to sound harsh, folks, and I know and like the two guys, but they are the image of their profession, and they should know what they are talking about. If we had used the halftime commentary that was coming from the stadium, we would all have been better informed. Indeed, and our local experts might have learned what makes a player offside.

Does anybody understand?