Liverpool Arts: TV Review: BBC football coverage is a shadow of what it should be

IT'S one of those curiosities of the TV schedule I've never really understood: Why do both the BBC and ITV insist on screening the same football matches at the end of international tournaments?

That's what we had on Sunday night as Euro 2012, the football tournament which was predicted to be marred by racism, poverty and the fact it was being staged at the far end of Eastern Europe but which actually turned out to go swimmingly.

And there’s no doubt who the winner of the head to head between BBC and ITV was. BBC: 13.3million viewers. ITV: 2.2million. Game, set and match, to confuse sports for a minute?

No doubt there will be much backslapping over at the BBC's Sports HQ in sunny Salford. But if you actually look at what the BBC served up, such backslapping is about as appropriate as Manchester City's first team high-fiving (which I'm sure they do, what with not just being there for the money) each other after a thumping of Crawley Town.

Because no-one really expects ITV to do football well.

We do expect the BBC to do football well. And the truth is, they don't do football well at all anymore. Not on TV at least. Radio Five Live is a different matter.

In no particular order: Gary Lineker comes across as dull and self-absorbed and incapable of getting an interesting debate out of a team of pundits – all of which is bad news for a host.

Then there are the pundits. Alan Hansen feels clearly out of touch with reality, and that's not a reference to his peculiar eyebrows. Comments like "Roy Hodgson's first big job was at Liverpool" leave him open to ridicule, not respect when talking about a man who had managed Inter Milan.

Then there's Alan Shearer, who makes Lineker look exciting as he somehow manages to combine been-out-of-the-dressing-room-too-long-to -be-able-to-give-insight with a determination to avoid offending any particular player.

The decision to stick the pundits in Salford for the group games rather than in Eastern Europe might have been a nice token gesture towards corporate cost-cutting, but it's a bit like MPs opting for paper napkins after bleeding the expenses system dry for too long.

And compared to ITV (and Five Live for that matter) who soaked up the atmosphere in the grounds, it left the Match of the Day team looking out of touch.

When they did get out to Eastern Europe (Lineker made the journey, despite being supposedly averse to travelling – or maybe it's just the commute to Salford he likes moaning about), the overcompensation for not being there from the start was all too evident.

It was as though Judith Chalmers had been brought in to advise on how to make people "wish you were here". Here's Gary in front of a mural, here's Gary in front of a stadium. Here's Gary... well, you get the picture.

Mark Lawrenson drew much of the criticism for the BBC's final coverage – especially on Twitter – but at least he tries humour. At least he tries to say something a bit different.

And if you didn't like the sound of Lawro, at least you could switch on to alternative commentary from Hacker the Dog and the rest of the CBBC cast.

The BBC should own football, but a combination of slavish devotion to a puntastic crisps salesman and a bunch of pundits who run a mile at the sight of an opinion means they're a distant also ran.

They're the Portugal of sports broadcasting – ok when no-one else is round, but once serious opposition arrives, their weaknesses are exposed.

Bring on the Premier League. Bring on Sky Sports.