SM Crisis 2012 - It's for your own good!

Great radio again last night.

After rocking up ten minutes late, and then spending another 10 minutes waffling on about the opening of a Greek migration exhibit, the 3XY sports guys finally got around to talking about South Melbourne Crisis 2012.

With the apparent resolution of the Toumbourou issue, there was interest from myself and some other South fans about how 3XY and Friends would report on the matter. And when they promised that they would open up the phone lines (for a massive 15 minutes) to take some calls live on air, they just about made my week.

Of course, one then had to sit through about an hour's worth of other guff, including:

• A-League
• Bentleigh Greens president (they signed Luke Sherbon)
• Oakleigh's Aki Ionnas
• Attempts to try and justify the comments that Elias Donoudis made in last Thursday's Neos Kosmos, which we discussed here.
• George Karandonis talking about Greek soccer and what matches were going to be on television that night.

Karandonis and the hosts were all in agreement that the Greek Media Group's reporting was actually beneficial to South Melbourne, because South ended up sorting out their issue with Peter Toumbourou - even though the club had been trying to avoid court proceedings right from the start, and had been attempting to deal with this issue for over a year.

Now I would agree with their rationale of performing a public service, if the reporting on the recent issues was even half decent. But as we've seen throughout the duration of this scenario, the reporting was sloppy in its handling of facts and fueled by personal agendas against the current committee.

That kind of writing does no one any good, and harms the Greek Media Group's credibility in the event that they stumble across actual mismanagement or corruption at South Melbourne.

Talking about issues as if they are explosive revelations, when in fact some of these issues have been talked about for years, is just ridiculous. There was a sober, impartial way of going about this reporting, which they disregarded in favour of hysterical sub-tabloid theatrics.

Anyway, on to the much anticipated talk-back session. The first caller was one 'Theodoros', who started by saying that he was a South fan who didn't have access to online news sources, and was therefore reliant on newspaper and radio reporting for his information.

Theo then asked the hosts, very slowly and carefully, why no one from the sports show had talked to any South people (such as committee man George Triantos, who used to be the regular contact point, or head coach Peter Tsolakis) for a whole year, like they do with people from the other clubs.

The main host, Kostas Paterakis, tried to deflect this line of argument by saying he'd personally been away for most of that time, and besides, they still talked about South. But to his credit, Theo wasn't satisfied with that answer, and kept asking them to answer his specific question.

Eventually the host, sounding increasingly nervous during this exchange, backpedaled to the point where he admitted there were 'problems with personalities'. There was no elaboration about what those problems may have been, nor why personal issues between South committee members and 3XY would extend to Peter Tsolakis, who as far as I'm aware, has not been involved with any of the behind the scenes/off-field issues.

Theo's call turned out to be the only they took. 3XY claimed they were short on time, but promised to open up the lines again next week. In addition, they appeared to say that some South representative would be appearing on the show in a fortnight's time. We look forward to listening to both events.