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Shuffling uncomfortably in our seat, FFTfeels beads of high-definition sweat trickledown our brow. Staring down a blinkingcamera lens like a terrified prisoner of war,

we babble incomprehensibly for what feelslike an hour, muttering stock phrases suchas ‘the gaffer’, ‘to be fair’ and ‘at the endof the day’. This morning your correspondentwas a journalist; now, fielding questions inamock press conference to learn first-handthe nature of amodern footballer’s mediatraining, he is a 17-year-old prodigy tipped forbig things. But while our (fictional) left pegcould rival that of Lionel Messi, it seems thatour interview skills are more non-leaguethan Champions League.Where once wemight mock the absence of

personality in certain footballers’ interviews –the dead-eyed stare, the refusal to engage ina proper conversation about the game, therobotic insistence to circle each question backto working hard for the lads and gettingthree points on the board come Saturday –here we are, mumbling the very same clichés.“I just want to get my head down, playfootball and impress themanager,” we say,like an idiot. In a quest to prove how easy it isto evade the droid-like stock responses offootballers, we actually end up doing a ratherconvincing impression of a crap post-matchinterview. Our teacher agrees: “There’s nopersonality, no warmth,” he says. “You’re

talking like a footballer.” Then, just for goodmeasure: “You look like an axemurderer.”The fact that we’re not actually 17 or blessed

with fleet-footed ball mastery notwithstanding,clearly FFT shouldn’t give up the day job.

Traditionally, media training was a handytool used by football clubs to prepare theiryoung starlets – vast in talent but short oncommunication skills – for the production lineof interviews that would soon accompanytheir career. A few years back, a hilariouslyawkward clip of Manchester United’s fabled‘Class of ’92’ went viral, with the cherubic facesof G-Nev, Scholesy, Becks & Co. giggling theirway through a reporter’s imaginary line ofquestioning. And yet, embarrassing though itwas, whether as a direct result of this ancienttraining day or something deeper withinthemselves, after enjoying glittering on-pitchcareers Gary Neville would become a stellar,smooth-talking analyst for Sky Sports andPaul Scholes a pundit for BT Sport (thougha little less slick, admittedly). We will neverknowwhat became of themedia-shywallflower David Beckham.Often chaired by weather-beaten old

journos or former PR folk, such training wasgenerally viewed as the proverbial scout badgein a young pro’s development; a simplebox-ticking exercise, and not one taken alltoo seriously. “When I did it with clubs, it was

Today’s footballers are so adept at straight-batting journalists’ questions,they’re often... well, boring. Why are players scared to speak their mind, andis the press to blame? FourFourTwo takes a crash course in keeping shtum

Words Sam Rowe Illustrations Dale Edwin Murray

MEDIA TRAINING

THE ART OF SAYING

NOTHINGM E D I A T R A I N I N G &

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with youth-team players as part of theiracademy programme,” one sports journalistreveals to FourFourTwo. “There was nomoneyavailable to spend [onmedia training] even atPremier League level. On the day Spurs saidthey couldn’t affordmy fee of £350, they signed[Sergei] Rebrov for £11million! It summed uptheir approach to youth development.”Today, this slapdash approach to schooling

young pros in the art of the interview is simplynot viable; not letting something controversialslip while chattering into a Dictaphone is onlyhalf the battle. With 24-hour news, social

media and smartphone-wielding civilians allrepresenting potential booby traps to thestars of today – not tomention the occasionalself-destruction of footballers themselves(just look at Leicester’s summer tour toThailand) – education is often comprehensivenow, starting at academy level.“They taught us a lot about social media,”

says Charlton’s 18-year-old scholar ReganCharles-Cook, articulate and engaging in hisfirst ever interview. “‘Don’t react, think beforeyou tweet, try to write in proper English’... theyshowed us examples of how it has backfired.”

“You’ve got to watch what you say onthere,” adds Karlan Ahearne-Grant, 17, whomade his first-team debut for the Addickslast season. “You never knowwho’s watching,and abuse can get to your head, especiallyif you’re young.”With the likes of Twitter, Facebook and

Instagram providing a tangible link betweenfootballers and their fans (along with theircritics, lest we forget) it’s easy to overlook thefact that this was all but impossible as recentlyas a decade ago. Before, if you were particularlyoverjoyed or distressed with the shift a playerhad put in on a Saturday afternoon, you wouldhave to write a strongly-worded letter to theclub, or perhaps that footballer’s fan club, orelse stalk them outside the stadium and riskprosecution, to have even the slightest chanceof letting them know how you felt. Now?Simply hammer down your concerns in140 characters or fewer, nomatter how tenderor scathing, and it’ll be accessible on theirmobile phone in a nanosecond.With widespread trolling afoot, even the

most senior of professional footballers canoccasionally bite back. “I will put you asleepwithin 10 seconds,” barked England andManchester United captainWayne Rooneyto a Liverpool-supporting detractor onTwitter in 2011. “Get yamum in, plays the fieldwell son! #s**t” offered Rio Ferdinand inSeptember 2014, when a fan goaded him bysuggesting his QPR side needed a newcentre-back – a retort that landed thedefender a three-match ban and £25,000 fine.When it comes to education of their youngscholars, clubs ensure that social media iscentral to their teachings.“All our junior professionals are put through

sessions where it’s explained to them that thefact they’re wearing the Arsenal badgemakesthem a public interest and, to a degree,public property,” says Mark Gonnella,communications director at Arsenal. “Withthat comes huge responsibility to stand up forthe principles that Arsenal as a football clubrepresent. It’s not just aboutmanaging themedia; it’s about how they behave in publicand on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, aswell as the press.”Of course, the latent risk of terrifying young

players into submission can be that, at an agewhere their personality as well as ability is stillvery much in development, they don’t go on tohavemuch of one. “Exhibit 1F: Wayne Rooneynaming Sister Act 2 as one of his favouritefilms. Exhibit 1G: Mark Noble and CarlJenkinson going fishing together,” wrotesports columnist Jonathan Liew in a Telegrapharticle last year. “When did footballers becomequite this uncool?”

It wasn’t always this way – the footballersof yore had charisma in spades. GeorgeBest’s rock ’n’ roll lifestyle saw him dubbed‘the fifth Beatle’, John Barnes was a rapper(albeit a slightly naff one) with a No.1 singleto his name, the Crazy Gang were anarchiststhat would ignite anything even remotelyflammable and Paul Gascoigne wasa one-man comedy show, commandeering

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London buses, donning plastic breasts andstripping down to his birthday suit at theearliest opportunity, to the glee of supportersand reporters alike. Call it nostalgia, but therewas a strong sense of fun in football back then.Players weren’t purely high-class athletes youadored from the stands or onMatch of the Day;they were affable, personable, the everymanwho you felt you could have a pint with.Then something happened. As the

Premier League grew in stature, with it camewheelbarrows full of cash and altogethermore ‘professional’ footballers. Gone was thecustomarymayhem of old, replacedby footballers that were brands withmulti-million-pound endorsements, entouragesas vast as their diet plans and a new, unhealthyskepticism of the outside world. Players andpress were no longer brothers-in-arms butscorned lovers who would still see each otherat parties and have idle chitchat, yet neitherwould enjoy the experience or come awaywith anything of merit. What went wrong?“I suppose everybody looks back with

rose-tinted spectacles,” says MarkWhittle,head of media relations at the FA, who supplyEngland seniors with a refresher in mediatraining, “but the simple fact of thematter isthat football is big business. It is extremelyprofessional, and with that, brand andimage is very important, certainly for clubs,players and agents.“In the case of the national team there’s

a responsibility to set an example; to be therole model; to inspire people to emulate you byplaying but also behaving in the sameway.”The odd eccentric remains – Zlatan

Ibrahimovic is a treasure trove of soundbitesand Andrea Pirlo a hirsute, effortlessly coolthrowback of a footballer, whereas MarioBalotelli continues to channel Paul Gascoignein playing the lovable fool both off and on thepitch – but such characters are few and farbetween in today’s footballing landscape.The biggest irony of themodern game is

that, in an age where players can share theirinnermost thoughts with the world via a fewtaps of an iPhone screen, they’re more facelessthan ever before. Top players are far morelikely to tweet about their latest sponsor thanwhat’s going on inside their skull. At the timeof writing, only one of the 10most recenttweets onWayne Rooney’s timeline isremotely personal: a good luckmessage toRafael, prior to his transfer to Lyon. The rest iscentred around a commercial or charity cause.Why? Because as we’re often told, footballersare role models to all ages, so when stickingyour head above the parapet can risk abuse,upsetting your employer or even a ban fromthe FA, it’s little wonder most keep it #bland.The anaesthetic quality of some player

interviews is not only hard-wired throughrisk-averse education, but years ofreinforcement. “They watch a lot of sport asthey’re growing up, see how other footballersdo it and then copy it,” says Glenn Kinsey,owner of Pozitiv.com, amedia coachingagency that strives to untrain clients andhelp them come off as themselves instead.“You’ve also got that overlay of not wanting

to put a foot wrong or cock it up, but asa footballer they often learn from their idols,and if their idols are dull as dishwater, they’reprobably going to follow suit.”

But perhaps themedia itself shouldshoulder some of the blame. Though wecry out for the next Paul Gascoigne, anybehaviour that does step even the slightestbit outside of boring is usually splashedacross a newspaper’s front page, not the back.Both Luis Suarez and Mario Balotelli (uponleaving Manchester City in 2013) cited theintrusion of the British tabloids as a factor inabsconding from England, and the treatmentof our homegrown stars is arguably evenmoresavage. Arsenal’s JackWilshere found himselfat the centre of a global news storm for daringto smoke a cigarette in 2013 (then again in2014, and oncemore in 2015 – a shisha pipethis time), with Raheem Sterling and JackGrealish condemned for inhaling the legal highnitrous oxide earlier this year. In the case ofGrealish, then just 19, his ill-fated attempt ata lads’ holiday in Tenerife went awry in June,with a now infamous snap of the Aston Villamidfielder taking a late-night siesta onthe Spanish island leading to widespreadcriticism in the press, even though it tookplace during the close season.“There is certainly a case for saying

[the press] have their cake and eat it,” saysGonnella. “Take Jack [Wilshere] as an example.

Footballers are criticised for not engagingwith fans in themodern game, and then Jackgrabs themicrophone during the celebrationsafter the FA Cup final [themidfielder led thecrowd in a chant that called rival clubTottenham ‘s**t’]. We understand why heended up in hot water, but hemadea connection with the fans, in the way thefans would like, and he’s criticised.”Granted, sympathy for individuals that are

paid upwards of amillion pounds amonth,never pay for football boots in their lifetimeand are able to buy plush houses beforesitting their A-Levels is not alwaysforthcoming, but theremight be a validargument to be had about the sheer volume ofmedia commitments. During any given week,footballers andmanagers are duty-bound toattend press conferences and conductpre- and post match interviews with allmanner of broadcasters – many of whichinevitably pose identical questions – not tomention the countless requests from nationaland local press, magazines, websites, bloggersand fans, and in-housemedia such as clubwebsites, TV channels and the official matchprogramme. Over the course of a long season,that vacant, dead-behind-the-eyes lookactually starts to make a little sense.“The players aren’t in the business of selling

newspapers or getting page views onwebsites; they want to give an honest opinionon what they love doing – playing football,”claimsWhittle. Perhaps that’s worthconsideration the next time ‘boring’ JamesMilner dedicates a lacklustre away draw toLiverpool’s travelling support.

Back in FFT’s own personal crash course(or rather car crash) inmedia training, ourmentor Glenn Kinsey – who countsWest HamUnited, the President of Tanzania and U2’sBono among his past clients – has somesympathy for today’s stars. “Footballers areodd,” he says, “becausemost people I workwith – be it in business or themedia – haverisen because of their communication abilities.Footballers are completely different, as theyoften don’t want to do it and are draggedinto it – have to do it – and find it irritating.“Sometimes, frankly, they don’t have

fantastic personalities. Their talent is in theirfeet, not on a public stage. That can bechallenging, because youmight have theiragent wanting you tomake them intoMr Showbiz, but you can’t.”For FFT, it would appear that Gary Lineker is

safe in hisMatch of the Day throne a littlelonger. We stretch a 90-second post-matchinterview to an embarrassingly long eightminutes; an almost Shakespearianmonologuewithout pauses, yet plenty of ‘um’s and ‘er’samid the embarrassing clichés.“I hope to push on and prove I’m not just

a one-strike wonder and hopefully push onwithmy career andmake a real name formyself,” we squeak, on the topic of a recentmake-believe net-buster. Somehow, even in theworld of fantasy football, this seems unlikely.Sometimes, it’s best to leave these

things to the professionals.

“You’ve got to be wary ofwhat you say – you neverknow who’s watching ”

MEDIA TRAINING