Give us back our sport

Fresh developments today on the whole Setanta highlights debacle which Steve B’s so eloquently dissected below, with Labour MP John Grogan demanding that World Cup Qualifier highlights should join the list of protected sporting events.

A rare sunbeam of sanity in a black void of sporting despair, Grogan’s call is of course welcome, but shows just how far we’ve fallen from the ethos of being able to catch a glimpse of any of our national teams, without having to cough up a small fortune or heading pubwards in return.

England v Andorra marked another watershed moment in the long slow rape of free-to-air sport with no highlights on any terrestrial channel whatsoever. You might consider that a blessing having being spared the full horror, but with the Beeb and ITV refusing to pay through the nose – and Setanta counterclaiming they were too tight, the only people to lose out were the fans.

To put it in context: Even Uncle Rupe’s Sky could be relied on to do the decent thing after they’d shown the game live and it’s not exactly known as being the most generous and altruistic of broadcasting operations.

So we’ve got A-List events like Wimbledon and the FA cup which must be shown live on terrestrial TV and even Second Tier events which are guaranteed highlights, but they’re being eroded as surely as the East Anglia coastline. Remember when cricket use to be A-List? How long before another bunch of chancers get to build their fortune by exerting a strangehold on our passion for sport?

Ultimately all it will do is damage the off-the-air sports themselves, who lest they forget are in direct competition with free-to-air and accessible sports for people’s time and affections. If you can’t see it, you simply won’t support it, something the FA might care to remember next time they discover Wembley tickets and replica shirt sales have gone through the floor.