They must be kidding
I’ve just seen a sports headline on the BBC website. Seems that Andre Ayew, of Marseille and Ghana, has been named ‘BBC African Footballer of the Year’. This took me so much by surprise that I read the whole story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/16202312.stm
Apparently this is nothing new. The award goes all the way back to 1991, when Andre’s dad, Abede Ayew, was the first winner of the award. Great news for the Ayew family: well done lads. It looks like a very nice little trophy.
Now, can somebody in Broadcasting House, or Manchester, or wherever the hell the BBC is based these days, please explain to me why it is doing this, and also what is in it for me, and all my fellow Broadcasting Tax payers? There has to be a cost in this exercise; given the fact that for the last few years we’ve heard nothing but whining from Mark Thompson and his colleagues about being starved of resources, I would like to know how they can justify it. I do not recall reading anything lately about the BBC British Footballer of the Year; all our sports are bundled together into the increasingly embarrassing SPoTY awards with one trophy going to the public’s flavour of the year, or to any member of the Royal Family who’s ridden a horse in competition without falling off. So I repeat, what’s it all about? I’m sure that African football, which is ridiculously over-favoured by FIFA, would continue to thrive if the BBC decided to divert whatever resources it spends on this bauble to a deserving cause within the nation that funds its ridiculous extravagances.
How about the BBC Alan Pollock Award for Alternative Dispute Resolution? That would go down a treat.
Quintin Jardine's blog 
There’s an award called the BBC African Footballer of the Year? How odd. It’s got me thinking though: if we send David Attenborough and numerous others over there to record and document their wildlife, do BBC Africa send their reporters here? I know they probably don’t, but they should do as it would make for some excellent TV (especially around lunchtime on Christmas Eve as shoppers do battle over the last remaining box of crackers).