Manchester United, a mess of a club on and off the field, has come up with a novel solution to its growing problems: banning journalists from asking its manager questions. The club has blocked a number of high-profile sports reporters from attending a press conference with Erik ten Hag ahead of Wednesday’s match against Chelsea at Old Trafford.
The banned journalists include Sky Sports’ chief reporter Kaveh Solhekol; Samuel Luckhurst, the chief Manchester United correspondent at the Manchester Evening News; Rob Dawson of ESPN, and David McDonnell from the Mirror. It remains unclear whether the ban applies for just one press conference or for all future briefings with the manager until further notice. It comes after widespread reports in the press which suggest that some United players may be losing confidence in their manager. Ten Hag has in response maintained there are no issues in the dressing room and that the team is unified.
The Manchester Evening News suggests that this may not be the first time reporters have been prevented from putting questions to ten Hag because of perceived negative coverage. The paper reported that last month another newspaper was unable to send reporters to a briefing with ten Hag after writing that the manager was ‘on thin ice’. What’s the problem with writing that, you might ask – ten Hag is on thin ice.
The club say they have ‘taken action against several news organisations, not for publishing stories we don’t like, but for doing so without contacting us first to give us the opportunity to comment, challenge or contextualise.’ This claim was repeated by ten Hag at his press conference. This is a feeble attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
It gets worse. ‘We believe this is an important principle to defend and we hope it can lead to a re-set in the way we work together,’ the United statement added. This is a club that increasingly appears to live in cloud cuckoo land. The only principle at stake here is the freedom of journalists to report on what’s going on with the team and ask questions of the manager. The only ‘re-set’ this misconceived attempt at censorship will cause is even more questions about what’s really going on behind the scenes at the club – and why the powers that be at Manchester United think it is reasonable to punish journalists for doing their jobs. Encroaching on press freedom won’t make the stories go away.
The Manchester Evening News reported a ‘well-sourced’ claim that several members of the squad are said to be startled at the poor quality of the manager’s signings. These include £82 million wasted on the under-performing winger Antony, signed from Ajax. Another £60 million was spent on signing Mason Mount from Chelsea, who has barely featured in the team. And then there’s the young Danish striker Rasmus Hojlund, signed for a reported £72 million, who has yet to score a goal in the Premier League. A number of senior players are reported to be questioning the manager’s tactics and approach to matches. Others are said to suggest he is too authoritarian and that he makes them train too hard. Poor things. The excuses are coming thick and fast and journalists are the natural outlet for such dissatisfactions. But the club should be looking at why there is so much apparent disharmony, blame and buck-passing within the squad rather than punishing journalists for simply reporting what they’re being told.
The reality is that banning reporters is not going to solve any of Manchester United’s actual problems. They had a dismal showing in their defeat to Newcastle last weekend, with almost universal criticism of the players for their lack of effort and desire on the pitch. They’ve lost ten games already this season, are at the bottom of their Champions League group, and have a minus one goal difference in the Premier League. All of this after spending £180 million in the summer transfer window. The excuse that the team have been hampered by several key players being injured is wearing thin.
Open press conferences are part and parcel of football coverage. Fans have a right to know what is going on with their team and it is the job of journalists to try to find out by asking questions. It is not for Manchester United – or any other club for that matter – to pick and choose who can attend press conferences. This is symptomatic of a game that is increasingly sanitised, prone to reacting badly to anything that isn’t PR-driven guff, and desperate to keep issues and problems under wraps. Manchester United have scored yet another own goal in their desperate attempts to control the reporting on the growing crisis at the club.
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