More and more these days, you stick the football coverage on and end up wondering who it is they’re actually speaking to. It often doesn’t feel like it’s aimed at the ordinary fan who buys the tickets and lives their week around Rangers and the game.
The Problem With Modern Pundit Panels
There’s been a real shift in who gets a microphone. A lot of the time it feels like broadcasters are prioritising people who fit a certain media profile rather than folk who genuinely live and breathe football. You watch some shows and it comes across more like a statistics lecture than a proper football discussion.
You can see why that grates. Supporters grew up listening to pundits who might not have been perfect, but you knew they’d been in dressing rooms, on pitches, in the thick of it. Now it can feel like you’re getting tidy, polished media-speak instead of honest, slightly rough-around-the-edges football chat that actually connects.
There’s nothing wrong with analysis or numbers, and there’s definitely room for people from different backgrounds in the game, but when it tips too far into theory and buzzwords, it loses something. Fans want people who seem to understand the emotion of football, not just the data behind it.
Representation, Box-Ticking And Genuine Merit
Another big frustration for some supporters is the sense that certain appointments on TV feel driven more by box-ticking than by who is best for the job. When that happens, fans can switch off very quickly. They’re not daft. They can tell when someone is on screen because they genuinely add insight, and when it feels like the broadcaster is trying to make a point.
That’s not about saying any one group should be kept out of the game. Football is massive, and there’s room for men, women, ex-pros, journalists, analysts and fans with something worthwhile to say. The key thing is merit. If you’re there, it should be because you’re good at it, you know the sport, and you can speak to supporters in a way that feels real.
When viewers sense that the balance has tipped towards image or politics rather than knowledge and connection, resentment builds. It ends up turning people against the whole product, and that does nothing for the game at any level, including our own coverage of Rangers.
Fans Just Want Honest Football Talk Again
Underneath all of this is something pretty simple. People just want to hear football spoken about in a way that sounds like the stands and the buses to away games, not a media seminar. They want pundits who aren’t terrified of saying what they actually think, as long as it’s said with a bit of respect and sense.
There’s a line, of course. Some characters cross it and end up causing offence or stirring up trouble. That has to be called out when it happens. But the reason some of these more outspoken figures still strike a chord is because supporters are crying out for someone who sounds like a real person, not a carefully trained presenter reading bullet points.
In the end, football belongs to the fans. If the people talking about the game on TV keep drifting away from how real supporters think and speak, you can’t be surprised when folk start to push back. All most of us want is honest, grounded, football-first coverage that remembers who the sport is really for.
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Rangers News Views offers daily Glasgow Rangers coverage including match reaction, transfer analysis, SPFL context, tactical breakdowns and opinion-led articles written by supporters for supporters.
