Wherever you go, you cannot escape it, it is like your shadow. COVID-19, or Coronavirus, is everywhere you turn. The media has it on a constant rolling ticker as it sweeps across the world leaving devastation in its wake. As well as empty supermarket shelves, it has also decimated the sporting calendar with tournaments postponed/ended and campaigns on hiatus.
In a way, the media are sitting on the very tip of a double-edged sword. Yes, they have to keep the general populace informed but the information that they give sometimes adds fuel and wind to what is becoming something of a growing, swirling bushfire of panic. That, of course, is the very nature of the beast that is the media.
It is a beast that Portsmouth owner Darragh MacAnthony has taken issue with (tweet – below), his opinions on the matter very clear:
Agree. Media needs to stop with the ‘75% chance of cancelled season source’ & ‘Greg Clarke says blah blah’. Right now correct action taken to suspend. In coming weeks we have to come up effective plan to finish all competitions when time allows it. Calmness needed for now👍🏻 https://t.co/HANwPYmuOy
— Darragh MacAnthony (@DMAC102) March 14, 2020
MacAnthony is very active on Twitter and very reasoned with it. Here he gets straight to the nub of the argument, the media sensationalism that is driving much of the opinion coming out about how the football season needs to move forward from its current, temporary hiatus.
As MacAnthony mentions in his commented retweet, FA chief executive, Greg Clarke, is said to be doubtful that the current halt to football will be restarted. Writing in The Times, Matt Lawton and Martin Ziegler say that he [Clarke] “has told the Premier League that he does not think the domestic football season will be completed.”
Of course, he might have said just that or he might not have said just that; in truth, no-one really knows. But whatever Clarke said to whoever, Darragh MacAnthony is bang on the money that “correct action [has been] taken to suspend.” The Posh owner is also right that the “coming weeks” are when football bodies should meet to thrash out the details of any “effective plan” to get all current campaigns finished.
Until then, well, we should all sit back, and heed MacAnthony’s call for calmness. Oh, and keep washing our hands whilst singing Happy Birthday’ twice.
