The Dispatch's Soccer Coverage Sucks

If you relied exclusively on the Columbus Dispatch for your sporting news, you wouldn’t even have known that the U.S. National Team was playing on Saturday, much less that several Crew members were on the roster.

OK, here it is brothers and sisters. I don’t want to hate the players or the game, but Ohio’s “Greatest Hometown Newspaper” actually has contempt for soccer. It’s not indifference or ignorance, it’s contempt.

El Luchador has sat on this one for a long time, but Saturday brought it to a head. The U.S. Men’s National Team was facing off against Sweden on national television. The Crew’s Robbie Rogers was set to make his debut with the senior team. Three other Crew players were on the roster.

The Columbus Dispatch didn’t even list the game on its “On Air” section. There were listings about obscure women’s basketball games and some bullshit golf match in Abu Dhabi. But there was no mention of the U.S.-Sweden game. Then on Sunday, there was no game recap.

Routinely, the Dispatch ignores major soccer news, doesn’t feature the games on its listings, and instead covers silly Ohio State minutiae. Just look at their Web site: They have a listing for “OSU Sports” and a separate listing for “More Sports.”

The fat Republican philistines who comprise the Dispatch sports desk sit and jerk off to every last detail of Ohio State football. You can read entire articles about the injured ankle of obscure NFL players. But when it comes to coverage of soccer, they are willfully ignorant.

Columbus has a huge soccer community and a gigantic audience for coverage of the beautiful game.

Sports Editor Ray Stein’s refusal to acknowledge this and his fetish-like obsession with Ohio State Football is an embarrassment to journalism.

Memo to Shawn Mitchell: If the provincial, narrow-minded douche bags in charge of your newspaper don’t get a clue, they are in danger of extinction.