Soccer Saturday to be recorded behind closed doors after unsavoury scenes

SKY SPORTS’ popular Soccer Saturday will be filmed behind closed doors for the first two weekends of next season, as punishment for the unacceptable levels of larking around which have plagued the show this year.

The programme has routinely degenerated into absolute chaos in recent months with an onslaught of shouted jokes about Matt Le Tissier’s weight and farcical updates from grounds by loose cannon Chris Kamara.

“There’s just no room for that sort of thing in the modern game,” said Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney. “English football is a global product with a reputation to uphold, we can’t be represented by Paul Merson slaughtering Jeff Stelling for his choice of tie while he’s supposed to be concentrating on the latest news from the DW Stadium.”

Mawhinney handed down a two programme cameras-off penalty to the programme in the hope that its presenters will stop playing up for the audience and return to a more sober style of football reporting, saying: “Those Sky boys could learn a lot from that nice girl on Final Score, Gaby Logan.

“Her show is all about relaxing on beige sofas while Garth Crooks calmly explains the latest play-off picture in League One at a sedate pace. That’s what football coverage is all about.”

Only once previously has such a punishment been handed out to broadcasters, in 1990 when some good natured banter between Saint and Greavsie about Mel Sterland’s England chances escalated into a vicious bare-knuckle brawl between the pair.

Soccer Saturday presenter Jeff Stelling is “inconsolable” according to friends, who say that the presenter spent his lunchbreak on Countdown yesterday morosely working through number rounds on his own, rather than his usual activity – arranging rude words on the letters board to the delight of the audience.

Pundit Chris Kamara told The Gaffer reporter Tony Hooper: “It’s unbelievable Jeff!” while Paul Merson was also contacted for comment but would only provide a customary blokey laugh.

Published May 19, 2010

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