Why ask a question you know the answer to????
Earlier this afternoon at approximately 2.30pm I settled down in front of the television eagerly awaiting news of Steve Coppell’s future at the helm of Reading FC. I was utterly relieved when John Madejski revealed at a press conference that Coppell would remain at the club at least for next season. I must admit that I was interested in this two-fold; one is obvious because I just told you but the other is because I wanted to know how a press conference worked and what the process was. Now, I’ve watched football press conferences before, but never once have I taken notice of how they were organised, or paid more attention to the journalists and their questions than the….footballers, for example. I passively viewed them shall we say? This time I took an active viewing and imagined myself there and thinking of questions I would ask. I also found myself criticising the journalists’ questions, I thought a fair few of them were crap and bared no real relevance to, well, anything.
Once that press conference finished I was fortunate enough to be able to continue my education as it was immediately followed by another; this time I was in Moscow with Sir Alex Ferguson seated across from me like a Mafia boss being flanked by two of his cronies, one in the shape of Rio Ferdinand, and the other, Wes Brown. These journalists were even worse though. Sir Alex would have much preferred my questions, each one would reveal an epic journey into his football pysche, and his discourse would be woven together in a knot of in-depth critiques on the state of world football, tactics, and the infamous pizza throwing incident. I would also ask him why he never does post-match interviews with the BBC. Why does no one ever ask him that?
I am almost certainly jumping the gun here, but I am sure that I could have asked better questions than the other journalists. Some Spanish fool decided to ask Sir Alex if Cristiano Ronaldo would still be at the club at the beginning of next season. Needless to say Ferguson gave him a dressing down; the word ‘idiot’ was used more than several times. He finished by telling the Spanaird that he would be willing to place a large bet in favour of Ronaldo moving nowhere, does Sir Alex know something we do not? No, simply. Chief Executive David Gill has reiterated several times this week that Ronaldo will not be leaving, despite continued interest from Real Madrid. Ronaldo himself has revealed his desire to stay at the club for the forseeable future. I could not believe that he asked a question that everyone knows the answer to, he has wasted his chance to ask a thoughtful, well constructed question that would receive a reply that he could in his story. All he can say now is, “Upon being questioned on Cristiano Ronaldo’s future, Senor Ferguson called me an ‘idiota’”. Not really riveting stuff.
Anyway, it just annoyed me that he would ask such a silly question that has already been answered on several occasions. I wonder what his editor will say to him when he goes back to his office… probably ‘idoita’.
