World Cup 2006 and the madness of FIFA
Published June 7th, 2006 in E-PRA couple of months ago I wrote about the online media restrictions FIFA, the governing soccer organisation, were putting in place ahead of this year’s World Cup. Since then FIFA have seen sense and recinded on the amount of restrictions they had put in place.
In the warm-up to the World Cup though, I cannot help but notice how incredibly out of touch the organisation was. To recap for those who didn’t read my original piece, online publications would not have been able to publish pictures from matches until an hour after the game ends and no more than five pictures during one half can be used.
Just to illustrate how stupid this is, visit YouTube where highlights from warm-up matches have been appearing in their droves (Examples: one, two and three). Any media organisations who would have been forced to adhere to these restrictions would not have been able to offer comparable coverage to that of amateurs. Furthermore the thought of only being able to use five images per half is absolutely mad. When Munster won the Heineken Cup in rugby, I missed the first try while watching it on TV, but a replay was available on YouTube before the first half of the match had even finished!
Another post worth reading is Trevor Cook’s ‘World Cup football and the future of TV‘, the main points of which are:
The World Cup shows us two important things about our media evironment 1) most people love TV and plan to go on watching it, especially on swish new screens 2) they particularly love it for watching sport (and created events like Big Brother, Biggest Loser and Idol)
The Internet isn’t going to replace television, but it is impacting upon it. As Cook points out, “broadcast TV can readily extend its reach by delivering content across a range of platforms.” In order to achieve this, organisations like FIFA have to realise that consumer’s viewing habits have changed, their business model needs to evolve with them.
Here’s my personal YouTube favourite that has emerged from the World Cup warm-ups - Peter Crouch’s goal celebration from England’s match versus Hungary meets Strictly Dance Fever…”World Cup Dance Fever“
Technorati Tags: FIFA, Piaras Kelly, YouTube
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Peter Crouch proves the benefit of Sky Plus. You can watch him score a goal, then pause it, wait for a few seconds and fast forward to the kick-off. I can’t watch that dance, it’s too cringe inducing.
Popularity is a word that can not be stopped by forcing. One can not make any impediment against it but in one sense Fifa is going to do so against the ever expanding popularity of Football unconsciously. Fifa’s such restriction on the free media coverage of football may prove it because Fifa has to realize the need of the present age where with the development of science and technology people become busier than they were in the past. So, Fifa should make the online broadcasting and media coverage free from any kinds of obligation.
Thank you for your excellent article.