World Cup Blog | Bruce Crumley Reading Between The Lines Of The Freebie Press subscribe to TIME Printable Version email this story Bruce Crumley: Read all his blog entries "Professor Cranky": Little (Irritating) Things

Posted Monday, June 26, 2006; 14.11BST
Though it's probably an unsightly example of talking out of class — or would be, if anyone actually read this blog — someone really has to blow the whistle on activity in the press section of this World Cup that deservers yellow card treatment. Nah, make it red. Because what we're talking about are the backstairs crawling putzes who shouldn't be in the press section in the first place, and are contributing to the larger process of regular fans being slowly shut out from stadiums built for them.

The average matchgoer doesn't see what goes on in the press tribune, apart from those sitting at its very edge (and even they only cast glances in to peer at the replays on TV monitors set into each, four-person working table). If regular punters did pay closer attention, they'd

Previous Entries July 7, 2006 Assessing The Legacy Of Domenec   July 6, 2006 The Runners-Up Final Is Really No Consolation   June 28, 2006 For Fans, Now Comes The Hard Bit   June 27, 2006 All About The Swiss Misses   June 26, 2006 Reading Between The Lines Of The Freebie Press   June 26, 2006 Little (Irritating) Things That Make The World Cup Go Round   June 25, 2006 The Cup's Rough Edges   June 22, 2006 Chilled Out In Dortmund   June 19, 2006 Living It Up In Leipzig   June 18, 2006 Why No Joie de Vivre?   June 16, 2006 Taking Advantage of Poor Refereeing   June 15, 2006 Feeling Let Down By The Giants Of Football   June 14, 2006 Reasons To Be Cheerful for Germany's Win   June 10, 2006 How To Win The Good Conduct Medal   June 9, 2006 Deutschland 2006 Turns Up The Heat

mostly see journalists watching the game, writing up reports, consulting with one another, and picking their noses when they figure no one is watching. In other words, pretty much what you'd expect in a press section.

But in addition to all that normal activity — and plain to see if you look around with an eye for it — you'll also notice people in the press section looking and acting like everyone else in the stadium: that is to say, losing themselves in the match, snapping off photos and yucking it up with their friends, and generally having a good old time without the slightest intent of producing an article, brief, report, or even score-updating SMS from it all. Know why? Because they aren't journalists; they're just guys who have somehow bagged media credentials and press game tickets. How? You've got me.

The numbers of these cheaters aren't massive — maybe a few dozen out of the over 500 journalists who are given tickets each game. Still, because demand habitually exceeds press box capacity — not every reporter gets match tickets he or she has requested as part of doing their job — many wind up having to watch games on TV or from city center big screens. Not the end of the world, some might say, but those same people might feel a tad gypped if they found out the and-you-are-there article they're reading about Cup play was written by someone who never actually got a peek at the pitch. Meanwhile, because these idiot imposters sitting among real journos in the stadium tend to scream, cheer their side on, and bang on tables when a bad call or missed shot excites them, they tend to make it difficult for those working reporters to do their job.

To disabuse anyone of the idea that is the expression of some sort of selfish, corporatist mindset seeking to keep anyone else from gaining the perks journalism often involves, I'll stress here and now that this isn't a call for fan-reporter apartheid, nor denial that a real problem with the expanding number of non-fan seats exists. Indeed, along with the seats now being reserved by FIFA for sponsors, business partners, and VIPs, the growing size of the press corps covering World Cups is starting to seriously eat into the seats that normal, football loving fans can buy. And they are the ones this is all supposed to be for.

Arenas are only so big, and paying fans are being squeezed out. Whether seats reserved for sponsors, VIPs, and/or the press need to be reduced in order to leave more stadium capacity for real fans is a debate I won't get into here. What I will say, however, is that as long as there are seats reserved for working journalists — and as long as many of those are being turned away due to lack of space — it's infuriating that a bunch of goobers having the time of their lives with tickets that sidelined reporters could have been working from, or which could have been put back into the general seating pool. Logically, it's a situation that you might imagine can only exist with the collusion and conniving of officials who clearly aren't applying the same strict accreditation criteria to these rollicking gehaws as they do the average journalist.

Why collusion? First off, because during the space of a Cup, you tend to cross your colleagues fairly often, and faces start to register. Most of the Good Time Chumps squatting press seats turn up for one match — max two — and then vanish. Not prone to producing very good copy on football. Meanwhile, repeat offenders seem clearly tight with decision makers. The best example is a guy I've seen at over half the matches I've attended: a twenty-something always clad in a personalized Ivory Coast jersey, always with a different chum or two, and forever filming them or being filmed by them with "and this was when I was at the World Cup" backgrounds. The man doesn't bring a computer, has never taken a note, clearly is only reporting for his own scrap book. And yet he's officially accredited, and getting all the match tickets he applies for (the former doesn't guarantee the latter).

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Worse still, with FIFA making access to players almost impossible, demand is extremely high for access to mixed zone areas — the place where journalists can pitch players questions as they exit dressing rooms en route for the bus. I have been denied mixed zone access each time I've requested it (ie. every match), for a number of reasons given by press officials. Irritating and not very convincing, but stuff happens. During three of those same matches, however, I've seen Ivory Coast Jersey tuck away not one mixed zone access, but THREE of them! And on one of those occasions, I then witnessed him making a bee line for the media shuttle back to town as soon as the final whistle sounded.

ICJ probably has no idea how useful his wasted passes could have been to actual journalists. Understandable, of course: he has no idea of what journalism involves. FIFA and Cup organizers should, however — and they have to know the wasteful effects that allowing privileged cronies play journalist have on the work of real media members.

I don't expect giving a blog shout about this will in any way influence the functioning of this scam (which, to be fair, isn't half as bad as the situation you see in any malingerer-pack press boxes at sold-out international qualifiers or friendly matches). Still, I figure readers might be interested at this other side of what goes on in the media tribune at Cup matches.

If nothing else, once you get tired of not being able to obtain regular match tickets legitimately, you may want to try taking a stab of getting a bogus press pass of your own.

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