BBC SPORTS' COVERAGE - IS THERE ANY, EXCEPT FOOTBALL ?

The BBC seems to believe that 'sport' = football.

Today's 'sports' slot on the Radio 4 programme 'Today' at 8:30ish gave several minutes to a discussion about the expected omission of one Ashley Cole from England's world cup football squad and gave very little attention to anything else. A few seconds were devoted to telling listeners that Lewis Hamilton had won a grand prix and Martin Kaymer a golf tournament. The only other item was the utterly pointless racing tips, though with no mention of any racing results.

Our national summer sport, cricket, was not mentioned even though the latest round of county championship matches started yesterday. Nothing was said regarding other performers behind Hamilton and Kaymer in their respective events, and nothing was said about tennis, in which there had been a significant final played on Sunday. There was no coverage of the rugby union play-off matches, nor of the rugby league 'Super league'; the UK athletic championships. Cycling, in which there is a major event taking place, was ignored.

Once upon a time, the BBC covered a wide variety of sports in excellent fashion. Today, they seem to have given up covering most sports and even given up reporting on all but football, unless, of course, a British competitor happens to be doing well. How Martin Kaymer, a German, managed to get a mention is a bit of a mystery though he is a citizen of the EU, so perhaps this helped to shoe-horn him in.

Apart from events which they cover in detail, fewer and fewer every year, the BBC gives no coverage worth the name to any sport except football. Cricket is almost forgotten even though it is our national sport. The replacement for the old 'teletext' is so poor in its coverage of most sports as to be useless - it is updated rarely and, again, devotes almost all of its energies to football.

It really is time for this once great organisation to be switched off or, at least, to have to fight for viewers as its competitors do. The licence fee has to go, even if the BBC does not.