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Matt Hughes: Times Blogger and Confidant to Barca

Celebrate?
By Herts Gooner
March 21 2006
As the usual stories about Pires to Rangers, and an Henry deal with Inter Milan, run and run, Herts Gooner looks at the career of Matt Hughes the journalist who gave the "secret deal with Barcelona" such prominence.

I recently sent an e-mail to The Guardian following a match report which I felt was ridiculously biased in favour of Bolton, and received the reply that the Guardian receives hundreds of e-mails from supporters, of virtually all clubs, claiming bias against their team. It is understandable a journalist can have an alternative view and you accept his, or her, opinion is given honestly, however wrong you may think it to be.

There is, however, one journalist whose opinion I have extreme difficulty in accepting in the same spirit, and that is Matt Hughes who writes for the Times, which he joined from the London Evening Standard last summer.

He first came to my attention when he became the Chelsea correspondent for the Standard and although his articles could almost have been vetted by Chelsea FC as he showed them in a such a glowing light, I found them ridiculous rather than annoying.

All that changed in May 2005 in the lead up to, during, and after the Premier League inquiry into the Ashley Cole tapping up affair. To say Hughes' articles were biased is putting it mildly. On 19th May he reported that Cole's relationship with Arsenal was ''close to breaking down'' due to Cole's dismay with his Clubs' stance at the Inquiry. The article claimed that ''despite Arsene Wenger's denials, David Dein had given evidence against Cole''. Dein categorically denied this.

The article also stated that ''Standard Sport can reveal that - Cole opposed Arsenal's appeal for an adjournment and wanted a verdict delivered a soon as possible''. Hughes also claimed that Arsenal's lawyer, Nigel Boardman, fed questions to the Premier League prosecutors, handing them notes and documents.

From whom exactly did Hughes receive this ''information''? Certainly not from Arsenal and certainly not from The Premier League; which only leaves Cole and Chelsea FC, whose new director of communications just happened to be Simon Greenberg, who left his job as Sports Editor of the Standard to join Chelsea. Coincidence? Who knows? Anyway, Hughes was so busy diverting attention from Chelsea's culpability that he didn't notice how ridiculous he sounded.

Following the verdicts and punishments on June 1st, he wrote an article on the 2nd blaming Dein for the prosecutions for not signing a ''peace pact'' with Chelsea 24 hours after Chelsea had been caught red handed. Chelsea said if Dein agreed to take no further action they, Chelsea, would publicly refute any interest in Cole. Hughes even quoted Chelsea as saying that Dein had a ''personal vendetta'' against them. Again, how ridiculous Hughes was sounding. The evil David Dein not dancing to Chelsea's tune. What was Dein supposed to say - ''better luck next time old boy, no hard feelings''? The article was entitled ''We want revenge, say angry Chelsea'' and also included quotes from Chelsea's Chairman, Bruce Buck, expressing disappointment with Arsenal.

The next target? Cole's agent Jonathan Barnett on 3rd June. In a damning article, Hughes heaped blame for the affair onto Barnett. Although I wholeheartedly agree that Barnett was probably the instigator of the whole mess, and appeared to be acting in his own interests out of injured pride, it still takes two to tango.

So where was the article laying blame at the door of the party who received the heaviest punishment from the Inquiry? Where was the character assassination of Mourinho for lying about his whereabouts on the day of the meeting in the West End hotel room? Nowhere to be seen, although it is fair to say I was not holding my breath.

All these articles had a prominent position in the sports pages of a paper read by hundreds of thousands of people in the south-east and the information is often picked up by other media sources and quoted. At no time could Hughes' reporting be described as anything but favouring Chelsea, and against Arsenal. I was left wondering how the Standard could have allowed this to occur. It was almost as if Hughes was Chelsea's lapdog during the whole affair.

I noticed he left the Standard that summer, but I was incredulous that he reappeared as a football writer with the Times and was soon back to his old style. A ridiculously biased match report against Arsenal followed the Spurs game at White Hart Lane with, on the same day, a fawning article about Roman Abramovich being some sort of Florence Nightingale because he visited Wayne Bridge at Bridge's house while he was recovering from injury. I wonder where he got that little story?

His latest and most damning piece of ''journalism'' came last Thursday, 16th March, when he produced an article entitled ''Henry is ours, say Barcelona''. This article was almost identical to an article published earlier in a Barcelona supporter’s blog, FC Barcelonablog.com. This story circulated on Tuesday 14th March stated that a verbal agreement was in place with Thierry Henry to sign this summer and quoting from sources ''close to Joan Laporta, the Barcelona President''.

Of course the similar article appearing in the Times gave the story more credence and was picked up by Sky Sports, TalkSport and various other media outlets and was discussed ad infinitum as further evidence of Henry's leaving Arsenal.

What did Hughes do to check the authenticity of this story? Did he do anything? Did he at least check the credentials of the people purporting to know ''the facts''? With all the rumour surrounding Henry it is relatively easy to get away with not having to prove the veracity of the story. Is there really an agreement in existence? Can Hughes prove it? As Wenger has stated such an agreement would be illegal as Henry is under contract until 2007. The problem is that the newspaper publishing this is the Times not the Sun and we have come to expect a certain standard from papers like the Times, Guardian, Independent or Observer.

With Arsenal having entered a crucial phase of their season with the upcoming games against Juventus, as well as the fight for Champions League place, this is an even more an unnecessary distraction than it is already is. Why should Arsene Wenger have to answer another round of tedious questions about Henry's future?

Because a man called Matt Hughes who has a history of biased, and at times unscrupulous journalism as far as Arsenal fans are concerned, has once again produced a speculative, if not mischievous piece of journalism.

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