The Mail's hypocrisy over BBC's World Cup cost-cutting

Every four years football’s World Cup comes around – and every four years the Daily Mail gets very angry about how many staff the BBC is sending to cover it at the expense of hard-pressed licence fee payers.

Back in 2009 the paper’s Liz Thomas was still fuming about the cost to the corporation of staffing for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, writing how the “blowout” had cost £1.9 million.

“The level of spending on staff travel, accommodation and other expenses – £56,000 a day for the month-long tournament – came at a time when BBC chiefs were pleading for a bumper licence fee settlement,” wrote Thomas, adding that “the real total could be larger still as the £1.9 million covers only BBC staff and not the cash spent on freelance pundits”.

In 2014 the circus moved on to Brazil, and the Mail’s chief reporter, Martin Robinson, revealed that the BBC was taking 272 staff – “which is the equivalent of 25 football teams”.

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“Licence-fee payers will spend £12million funding the trip to cover the month-long tournament in South America starting on June 12,” wrote an aghast Robinson. “The bill will include five-star treatment for pundits Gary Lineker, 50, Alan Shearer, 43, Alan Hansen, 58, and Robbie Savage, 39.”

Describing the BBC corps as “bloated”, Robinson also contacted Jonathan Isaby, then of opaque pressure group the Taxpayers Alliance and now spokesman for Liz Truss, who said: “The BBC needs to stop wasting so much of the licence fee on this extravaganza and cut back on the number of additional jollies that come with the coverage.”

Four years ago the tournament was in Qatar – and the Mail’s Shekhar Bhatia was dispatched to uncover the “luxury £2,500-a-night Doha apartment complex that is home to BBC World Cup stars Gary Lineker, Rio Ferdinand and Alex Scott, complete with rooftop swimming pool and landscaped terrace as licence fee payers pick up the bill”.

The presenters and pundits were “enjoying a pampered lifestyle”, Bhatia wrote, reporting that the accommodation was “well known for its iconic rooftop jogging track which gives runners outstanding views of the Qatari capital”. And he tut-tutted: “The star team from the Beeb have become familiar faces in the adjacent café Flavours which serves up lattes, fresh fruit juices and French toast.”

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So how did the Mail react to the BBC’s coverage of this year’s tournament in the USA, Canada and Mexico, which the Beeb has chosen to save hard-pressed licence fee payers’ cash on by primarily anchoring it from its sports studios in Salford? Rather than praise the cost-cutting and lack of bloat, the BBC shows are, according to consultant editor Katie Hind, “insufferably woke”.

“Their rivals at ITV have jetted out to present their programmes from a super swish location in Brooklyn which features the stunning Manhattan skyline, as well as Brooklyn Bridge, as a backdrop,” she wrote.

“In a further jarring contrast, former colleague Gary Lineker’s impressive home for the tournament will be a studio in Times Square where he’ll be hosting his The Rest is Football podcast which will be screened on Netflix in a £14 million deal.

“The BBC, on [BBC director of sport Alex] Kay-Jelski’s orders, has refused to anchor their coverage from any of the 16 cities across the US, Canada or Mexico where matches are being played.” She quotes a “TV insider” as telling her: “While Alex might feel he is doing the right thing, he needs to remember the much-used phrase ‘go woke, go broke’.”

It’s this kind of consistency for which the Mail is so rightly famed!