BT Sport presenter Humphrey responds to criticism from Neville and others over CL final coverage

Matt Stead
BT Sport presenters

BT Sport presenter Jake Humphrey has leaped to the defence of the broadcaster’s Champions League final coverage.

Gary Neville was among the many who criticised BT Sport for their build-up to the European Cup showpiece between Liverpool and Real Madrid, with their handling of the ongoing situation outside the stadium attracting particular opprobrium.

BT Sport had no correspondents outside the Stade de France to report on the developing issue of Liverpool fans being treated abhorrently by French police outside the stadium, and the 36-minute delay to kick-off did mean that Humphrey and pundits Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen were reduced to a game of ‘What a player he was, by the way!’ as the cameras instead cut to images of former footballers in the stands, including the Brazilian Ronaldo.

Humphrey issued a defence of BT Sport on his LinkedIn page:

‘Possibly one of the hardest sports events I’ve ever covered. And I’ve done some tricky ones,’ he wrote.

‘We had limited information about what was going on outside, my talkback (the umbilical cord to my production team) suddenly stopped working, the TV compound was impacted by the tear gas so our production team were barricaded in their trucks. And many of us had friends and family at the game and we had no idea if they were even safe.

‘And amongst all that we were trying our best to get the tone right, under the scrutiny that seems exclusive to live football.

‘Hopefully you wouldn’t have known too much about all that, the BT Sport production team are up there with the very best I have ever worked with.

‘And as you can see from the photograph, my parents, both in their 70s, were ok. However, it was clearly a very scary experience for them.

‘The single most important thing is that people are ok, lessons are learned by those in charge and it’s never repeated.

‘In many ways all of that overshadowed what was a dynamic and fast-paced build up delivered pitchside, that we should be proud of. And of course, Liverpool not winning the trophy meant the post-match scenes didn’t see us joined by jubilant Liverpool players and staff.

‘However, I’m just reminded of the ultimate description of High Performance, from all the interviews we have conducted:

– Do the best you can.
– Where you are.
– With what you’ve got.

The whole team stood up and did that yesterday. Thanks for your company last night and across the whole season. Hope those of you who were there are ok. And I’m sure you Liverpool fans enjoyed Klopp telling us to book their hotel in Istanbul for the 2023 final.’