An internal inquiry has begun at the BBC over its lacklustre interview with England manager Fabio Capello ahead of today’s crunch World Cup group match against Slovenia.
According to Charlie Sale in today’s Daily Mail, the BBC’s flagship 10 O’Clock News, Radio 5Live and the BBC website all used Capello’s quote that former skipper John Terry had made “a very big mistake”, which was given in his interview with ITV Sport’s Gabriel Clarke, rather than material from the BBC interview conducted by Gabby Logan.
Sale reports: “The stark contrast with Clarke’s reporting expertise has led to talk within the Beeb that Logan… was the wrong choice for such an interview.”
The BBC’s official line is that Clarke was fortunate to get a more irritated Capello, at the end of a long session of broadcast interviews. “Gabby gets on very well with all the England camp. It was just one of those things that Capello got increasingly irate on the day,” a BBC spokesman told Sale.
ITV’s coverage of the World Cup has otherwise come in for criticism, starting with HD service viewers having to endure an advertisement three minutes into the live coverage of England’s opening game against the United States, thus missing Steven Gerrard’s goal.
ITV has shown England’s first two matches live, and head of sport Niall Sloane has tried to bring his years of experience in editing BBC’s Match of the Day, and one or two key BBC colleagues, to the commercial channel. Presenter Adrian Chiles, a high-profile recent transfer from the BBC, has come in for particular scrutiny in his performance, as has some of ITV’s more eclectic choice of panellists.
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