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Don’t mention the War. Sell it.

June 4th, 2008 | By: Jan | 17 Comments »

Leo Beenhakke, Michael Ballack and Jogi Löw You have to give tabloids like Fakt or Super Express some credit, for trying their best to help us over the fact, that we’ll have to go through a whole tournament without England and without the English media (although I suspect they will still try their best to make themselves heard).

Things started out mostly harmless, when former Polish international Zbigniew Boniek said, his research had revealed that Polish football players are exactly 16 times more intelligent than their German counter parts.

Fakt then got more ambitious with a montage of Michael Ballack in a 1/3 medieval, 1/3 first World War, 1/3 football kit outfit, put to the sword by Poland’s Dutch coach Leo Beenhakk & Slayer. Which was again topped by Super Express and a more tasteless version, with Leo Beenhakker holding the decapitated heads of Michael Ballack and Jogi Löw, as if he was some terrorist on a cheap VHS tape.

Germany’s own evil four letter newspaper, has so far only chronicled its’ colleagues efforts in an article which is currently sharing the website’s front page with Hillary Clinton and Megan Fox’s voracious sex drive (as of June 4th). But they are probably already cooking something up in their Photoshop laboratories as well. For those of you, who are new to all of this: they could go for a Borat approach, which is a generally safe bet for anything Eastern European, or they could chose the “Poles steal cars” theme. A stereotype which I think was born shortly after the Cold War, when organised crime groups used the open borders “to export” German cars to Poland to resell them for a profit.

And while talking about profits, it’s worth mentioning the following fact: Fakt is owned by the German Springer Verlag, which – surprise revelation – also owns Bild. I guess Super Express just couldn’t stand seeing the sister papers playing ball with each other and joined in on the party.

DFB boss Theo Zwanziger and Leo Beenhakker meanwhile were left with all the diplomatic homework. Beenhakker denounced the photomontages and distanced himself from everything. He even had some kind words for the Germans: “There aren’t many fans of German football in Holland, but I am one.”

Then Theo Zwanziger said something nice about the Poles: “The Poles are our neighbours and friends. We have a very good relationship.”

And now I will say something nice about the Poles as well: They have an excellent blog here at the World Cup Blog. So head over to the Poland blog to get some valuable insights ahead of Sunday’s game.

Tags: Bild, Fakt, Group A, Joachim Löw, Leo Beenhakker, Michael Ballack, Springer Verlag, Super Express

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Comments

By tomasz | June 4th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

I agree with everything you’ve written Jan. It wasn’t like this before the game 2 years ago but now we’ve got two tabloids here competing fiercely so they have to shock the audience in order to sell more. I don’t have any respect for Fakt or SE whatsoever, I remember that the former wrote something like “Don’t you dare come back home” on the front page after our game against Ecuador. After living for some time in Scotland and seeing the ‘quality’ of their popular press I don’t want this nightmare to happen in Poland.

Posted from Poland

By j | June 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Those are brilliant points about the nature of some journalistic outlets. Thank you for sharing.

By Jan | June 4th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

Thanks tomasz for the extra info on the current competition between the two papers. I slightly changed the title of the post, to better reflect what all of this is actually about.

By gregorio | June 4th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

nice of you, jan, to mention the german owner of the FAKT, which also produced some shovinistic article in the context of the game. i’m not about blaming anyone else for the crap we’re witnessing, and what SE has given out is, still, miles more horrible. it’s just that these newspapers have so little to do with what normal poles think and feel, and the photo with the heads is – apart from its heinousness – a striking examlpe of this. it’s just so ridiculous and surreal that here nobody could take it seriously. still, it is embarassing…

Posted from Poland

By diana | June 5th, 2008 at 10:04 am

This is really sick. Really.

Jan, there was a short report in one of the papers here today about Ballack being in the centre of this. And no, the article in question didn’t featured.

Anyhow, it really brought back some unpleasant memories for me. I don’t want to talk about it…

Posted from Singapore

By diana | June 5th, 2008 at 11:07 am

Alright, I will talk about the unpleasant memories. But I will let a link tell part of the story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sale_of_Shin_Corporation_to_Temasek_Holdings

Two years ago, both Thailand and the Singapore national football teama were in the final of a football tournament (comprising countries from the South-East Asia region which Singapore is part of). Coming from Singapore myself, I was wondering how the Thai newspapers will react to our national team being in the final. On the football side of things, in the South-East Asia region, Thailand has always been a football powerhouse and we came in second. That I can acknowledge. Our local journalists who went to Bangkok covering the final (it was held there, the capital of Thailand) reported about that some politics was involved in how some of the Thai newspapers covered the final. It all comes back to the link I posted. Other than that, the general sentiments our journalists get in Thailand at that time was that the locals were optimistic of a win over our national team.

Diplomatic relations were at a low between here in Singapore and over in Thailand over that matter (the Wikipedia link). Even to the extent that when the former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (who now owns Manchester City) was on a visit here back then, the Thai media kind of kicked up a fuss. Was it a personal or business visit for Thaksin, I had forgotten. But I understand since Thailand has a new prime minister, relations were restored. Thailand will always has a special place in my family, even though I have never been there yet. I mean, it’s actually where my parents spent their wedding honeymoon.

Footnote: Our national team won the tournament in the end eventually. One of the newspapers’ headline here after the match was something like ‘Football won’. At least politics never took centrestage in the end.

Posted from Singapore

By diana | June 5th, 2008 at 11:12 am

Wait, I think it’s the government in Thailand kicking up a fuss over Thaksin’s Singapore visit. Have to correct that.

Posted from Singapore

By Matt | June 6th, 2008 at 11:28 am

The views of retarded tabloids are not the views of Poles with regard to our neighbours. We can always treat it as a Photoshop competiton though I wonder what Bild will come up with

Posted from Poland

By Jan | June 6th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

diana: well, proves that these type of things happen everywhere.

By Jan | June 6th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Matt: well, Bild have surprisingly done nothing except for denouncing it as a scandal so far. And I hope it stays that way – at least until the match is over. Provoking negative emotions ahead of a football match, where Polish and German fans will flood the streets in Klagenfurt is just irresponsible.

By hattrick11 | June 6th, 2008 at 8:54 pm

Agreed that it’s in poor taste and once again tabloids are putting words in other peoples mouths. I’m sure most Poles don’t believe in any of this, but it does create a stir and heck, here we are talking about.

Posted from United States

By diana | June 7th, 2008 at 4:09 am

Jan, true. It’s always so sick. Which is why I has always believe politics and football just don’t mix with each other. An experience so close to home early last year really hit me on the effects of it. Which is why when I first knew the whole controversy out of Poland, it really brought back those unplesant memories for me (which at least has a happy ending).

Anyhow, as I was discussing about the tournament with my father, I couldn’t even bring it up to him when I was talking about the Germany-Poland match. I just stop short. I just said that it’s a tabloid controversy.

And my face almost white when I was watching ESPN Sportscenter Asia like on Thursday. We have ESPN’s Asian feed on the pay-TV here and they did reported about the controversy…with the photos. I have to get a newspaper to cover my face from what was shown on the TV screen. As far as I am concerned, at least the newspapers here didn’t publish those sickening photos. Only a report about Poland coach Leo Beenhakker apologising the entire matter. I would have really on the verge of vomitting if it happens.

‘Provoking negative emotions ahead of a football match, where Polish and German fans will flood the streets in Klagenfurt is just irresponsible.’
Yeah. Already what happened two years ago during the World Cup…I don’t want to talk about it.

Posted from Singapore

By al | June 7th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

i will miss england being in the euros but at least we do not have to put up with this type of reporting everyday, oh yes and also the shit pop songs that go with it.this piece even made the papers over here and the press were aghast about it. pot,kettle and black spring to mind.

By Habicht | June 7th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

I hope that whatever the result of the Poland – Germany match may be the
respective supporters will remember that all this is not about politics – not to speak of war – but about sports. And that those who will suffer defeat are not inferior but simply have lost in a sports event.

Posted from Germany

By diana | June 8th, 2008 at 8:37 am

Habicht, agreed. If it’s my team which lost I will be sad definitely but at the end of it, it’s just a football match after all.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVvKJeTNiZz_mGHNhLJ3FFWTtW7A

It’s about clashes between the Germany and Poland fans last night. Why? I can still remember those news footages of what happened two years ago ahead of the two facing each other in the World Cup group stage. I was, horrified.

But then at least something good come out of the whole tabloid mess. Poland coach Leo Beenhakker yesterday personally met Loew at the stadium where the two nations will be playing each other (Klagenfurt’s Woerthersee Stadium) and apologised to him over what happened last week.

The link in question – http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080607/tsp-fbl-euro-2008-gpb-ger-pol-loew-beenh-47c0590.html

Posted from Singapore

By Nobody You Know | June 8th, 2008 at 6:22 pm

Those primitive papers give Poles a bad rap. No self-respecting Pole would purchase them (at least I hope). We can make choices and nobody as to purchase primitive crap.

By Nobody You Know | June 8th, 2008 at 6:24 pm

I just noticed: Polish and Singapore flags are a mirror image of each other. Nice!

Comments are closed