It may be a week since the Greatest Show on Earth began, but ITV have made an abysmal start to their coverage of the tournament. It has left the channel well and truly red-faced.
Below is the ITV World Cup theme tune, which is the only plus point of their entire coverage.
The first cock-up was during England’s first World Cup match, against the United States in Rustenberg last Saturday. When Steven Gerrard brokethrough the American defence to put the Three Lions infront, inside of four minutes, ITV HD viewers were treated to this:
This isn’t the first time, as many viewers were gobsmacked to see Dan Gosling’s winner for Everton in an FA Cup 4th Round Replay against Liverpool missed for a Tic-Tac commercial back in February 2009.
Adrian Chiles, the new face of ITV football, taking over from the dependable, if obtrustive Steve Rider has brought over his humour from BBC’s Match of the Day 2 to the channel. However, this style does not suit live coverage, and his bumbling apology to HD viewers for missing the crucial England goal last week only made matters worse.
Less than 72 hours later, ITV pundit Robbie Earle was flying back to England in disgrace. Ex-Wimbledon striker Earle, who scored for Jamaica against Croatia in the 1998 FIFA World Cup, has been part of the ITV team since 2001. However, he was sacked by the channel, after 40 of his tickets were found to be in the possession of some Dutch girls, portraying a marketing campaign for the Dutch beer, Bavaria. FIFA rules clearly state that only family and friends can have tickets from these established experts of the game, and allegedly, this isn’t the first times that Earle has committed the offence. The incident took place during Holland’s Group E opener in Soccer City on Monday against Denmark. Earle’s insistence that he didn’t do anything wrong only makes matters worse.
ITV’s humour to try and embarrass North Korea as much as possible is another low. Though the Koreans weren’t helping themselves with some of their antics, ITV made them a laughing stock and were forced to grovel almost, following the Asians brave display against Brazil at Ellis Park on Tuesday.
It has been a disastrous start for the broadcaster, but sadly, these failings fail to surprise me too much.
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