Last week Portsmouth and England footballer David James’s regular column in the Guardian blamed what he calls an ‘army of PR people’ operating in the industry for the recent football-related media storm. He claimed that their role is to ‘dupe’ the public into holding ‘unrealistic expectations’ about their role models.
James claims he is ‘too honest and open to have PR help’ and goes on to list a number of instances in which he feels PR has attempted to promote an idealised image of him, rather than who he really is. There are those who would argue that the England goalkeeper is missing the point here. At the highest level, footballers are paid a lot of money to perform a skilled job in the public gaze. Isn’t it reasonable then to expect interest in the lives of players when they step off the pitch?
As long as this interest remains, there will be a role for PR to support the image of footballers. James is perhaps a rarity in the modern game as he is considered to be intelligent, well-spoken and thoughtful; however, it’s worth bearing in mind that many of James’s peers are twenty-something millionaires who might not share the same mature outlook on life. It is for this reason that footballers must embrace PR for the best interests of all concerned – after all, we have seen enough in recent days and weeks to confirm that careers and even marriages can suffer when the public get too close to the truth.
It might be worth clarifying what the role of PR is. Done properly, PR is not, as David James suggests, a platform for misinformation, nor is it a facility for distorting the truth for personal gain. Equally, it is not a means of protection from journalists and their difficult questions. What PR can offer is constructive, carefully planned and targeted media opportunities which can help to raise a profile in the right areas and at the right times. The public’s thirst for information relating to public figures in this country has never been greater, which means that one thing is for sure – you can never be too honest or open to benefit from good PR.
John Terry