Anything and everything to protect the "brand"/"product", it would seem.Dave Cahill wrote: ↑January 13th, 2023, 3:06 pm There is no access in professional football at approaching the highest level that isn't closely managed.
I was doing sound on an interview with an irish international soccer player about nothing to do with football (and we wouldn't be asking about football). Present were someone from the FAI press office, his clubs press office (!), someone from a sponsor and his agent. We had to clear the topic and the questions in advance along with an outline of the piece we were filming
Your anecdote, Dave, only reinforces, IMO, what I was saying about mid-match interviews with coaches. I have never heard even one, where the coach actually said something I dIdn't already know from watching the game up to that point, which means, in other words, that his talking into the microphone and their interruption of the audio stream attention to matters on-field was totally superfluous - other than in allowing the broadcasters maintain the charade, that they leave no stone unturned in their efforts to keep their punters "entertained" and/or "informed".