Liverpool not going bust?

Will Hicks and Gillett still be smiling next year? (Image courtesy of icnetwork.co.uk)

The debts of Liverpool FC may be rising, but according to this article by BBC Sport News, the club’s managing director Christian Purslow is confident that the club will not go bust and that there are still parties interested in purchasing the beleaguered club.

This is a very significant piece of news because Liverpool is one of the world’s most-supported clubs with over 200 official supporters clubs worldwide – even in places as far away as Azerbaijan, Mauritius and Tokyo. So a story on the future of such an established football club definitely has impact – simply because many fans worldwide would want to know about this.

It also satisfies the newsworthy criteria of prominence because Liverpool has won the English domestic league 18 times. This story is timely too, because not only is the club currently in heavy debt, but they aren’t doing well on the pitch either – and are now lying 16^th in the league table. Last season, they finished seventh.

The interviews with Purslow and Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks are highly relevant to the story because they are Liverpool’s top management. Their quotes are therefore applicable to the news angle. However, it might be interesting to have had some conflict in the story by speaking to Liverpool fans as they may provide some opposing point of view – this is one newsworthy criteria the story lacks.

The usage of the pull-out quote by Purslow about “any incurrence of indebtedness by Liverpool Football Club needs full board approval” is relevant and helps reinforce the news angle too.

But the main image of Liverpool fans at a game does not match the accompanying picture caption that the fans “want to see the back of the club's current owners” because the caption signifies tension, but the picture looks too calm.

Overall, this is a very important story.

Walter Smith: Rangers to beat Man United

A tough game ahead for Walter Smith this week. (Image courtesy of Daily Mail)

As you probably know, the group stage of the UEFA Champions League (UCL) is just about to start. This is Europe’s premier club competition where the best clubs in the continent compete against each other for glory.

The article this week – from BBC Sport news, focuses on the Battle of Britain, which is the eagerly-awaited clash between English giants, Man United, and top Scottish team, Rangers. There are comments from the Rangers manager, Walter Smith. In the article, he talks about his club’s form and predicts that Rangers will have a tough task ahead of them to contain the firepower of their English opponents. This prediction helps to add strength to the story.

There are also views from the Rangers chairman, Alastair Johnston, about Rangers’ good away form. This provides the reader with a contrasting opinion. The article blends in Johnston’s comments well with Smith’s – without awkward transitions as it goes from one point of view to the other. However, it would have been interesting to add further conflict to the story with a quote from the opposition – Man United manager, Alex Ferguson.

It is interesting that this story does not consist of any photos, but instead has two videos. As these are more interactive than photos, this would probably help to engage the online reader more. The first video is on Smith talking about their chances of beating Man United. The second one is on Johnston saying how they are looking forward to playing Man United and hoping that rioting fans will not cause a problem. However, upon watching the videos, it seems like the author has simply summarised the videos rather than interviewing the two parties concerned. While this is good for those who may not have the time to sit back and watch the videos, perhaps it would have been more beneficial to the reader if BBC could have used the videos instead, to back up their story, rather than using them as a focus.

In this article, though, the five ‘W’s and ‘H’ of journalism are present. This is good, as it keeps the story focused.

Van der Vaart: Too Overconfident?

Tottenham's new signing, Rafael van der Vaart, is confident about

winning silverware. (Image courtesy of Goalymoly.com)

This story on the English football portal http://www.premierleague.com/, is about Tottenham’s new signing, Rafael van der Vaart. He talks confidently about winning silverware with his new London club, Tottenham Hotspur.

The article is based mainly on an interview with the player. References to Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp are made, but it would have been more credible if Redknapp was quoted, too.

The writer has given the reader some history as well. For example, he comments that van der Vaart started off as a promising youngster with the world at his feet. However, he has not lifted a major trophy since 2004 after winning the Eredivisie (Holland's top football league) trophy with his first club, Ajax. This extra information is good, as it helps the reader to understand the player a bit more.

I also liked the interactivity with the series of pictures of van der Vaart - because it engages the online reader through the clicking of the arrow buttons.

However, not all the interactive pictures in the series match the captions. For example, the second picture is a mugshot-style photo of van der Vaart dressed in an Oranje jersey and the caption says that he moved from Real Madrid to Tottenham. Using an image of him in a Real Madrid jersey would have been more relevant.

But the story definitely follows the newsworthy criteria of good journalism. The timeliness factor is satisfied because the English transfer window has just closed. It has prominence because van der Vaart is from a big Spanish club. There's also proximity because http://www.premierleague.com/ is targeted at primarily an English audience so they would be interested in the comments of a big-name football player who has come to ply his trade in England.

The five 'W’s and ‘H’ of journalism are also present. But it might have helped to put the ‘WHY’ higher up in the story though, because readers would be intrigued on why van der Vaart thinks he's able to win silverware with Tottenham. So it may frustrate readers to have to read through almost the whole story before they can find out this information.

Overall though, it is a good effort by the author.

Premier League managers help Capello

Capello is stumped by England's World Cup disaster. (Image courtesy of islandcrisis.net)

Managers of top English Premier League clubs are concerned by England’s World Cup disaster earlier this June and they are actually offering their help to England manager Fabio Capello, according to this article by the Guardian.

I was taken aback by this piece of news as I have always thought of the English club managers as being more interested in winning silverware for their own club. They have always seen international football duties as being a chore and that it distracts their players especially in the middle of the busy football season. I remember last season when Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was complaining about his star striker Robin Van Persie returning injured from international duty - so news of the club managers wanting to help England's head coach was really surprising.

This short story is interesting, but it seems to have consisted of only a single interview with Richard Bevan – the chief executive of the League managers' Association. Other sources should have been interviewed. Managers such as Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson and Wenger are mentioned in the article as having written a letter of advice to Capello but this is not backed up with comments from these coaches themselves. Even a short interview with one or two of these managers would have given the story more depth.

The visual showing a backdated picture of a glum Capello at an England match conference could also have been made more relevant to the story by replacing this with one of Capello being surrounded by a few English club managers.

This article seems to have been copied and pasted several times onto different news websites through a Google search. The Guardian seems to have done this too, as they credited Bevan’s quote to another newspaper, the Telegraph. This makes me wonder whether the facts were checked before the article was posted online because of the changing media landscape and the rush for news institutions to deliver the latest breaking news.

But overall, this is an informative article and the five ’W’s and one ‘H’ of journalism are present.