Today in media fights sees Marca hit back at BBC after they claimed the Real Madrid paper were unfairly targeting Gareth Bale.
Andy West of the BBC published a piece on Friday where he accused them of making Bale into a scapegoat for the Spanish giant's recent form. This morning, Marca have responded and brought up Jimmy Savile in the process. As you do.
They state that the BBC have ' veered off the course that made it a byword for quality journalism throughout the 20th century,' and go on to list various mistakes they've made, including 'Such bloopers as mixing up the Italian and Bulgarian flags at the beginning of the ongoing rugby Six Nations.'
They then go on to make reference to the ongoing investigation in the alleged Jimmy Savile cover-up.
The BBC piece had implied that Bale was caught up in the middle of a row between Marca and Real Madrid president Florentino Perez:
Rather than the player, the newspaper's major quarrel is with the president - and discrediting Bale is just a handy way of getting at him.
Of course, Marca have denied this, saying 'For the record, Marca does not engage in campaigns; it informs readers. Rigorously. Something that apparently can no longer be said of the BBC who, like ITV, seem now to be all about drama.'
This morning (I've lost track of what stage of the responses we're at now), Andy West pointed out some discrepancies between the online version and the print copy of this Marca piece:
Marca's original response to BBC piece had references to British drinking & hooliganism. For some reason left out of translated version...
— Andy West (@andywest01) March 16, 2015
This has all gotten out of hand, very quickly.
hat-tip: Bleacher Report
