Metta ground security refused entry to two sportacentrs.com-affiliated and Virslīga accredited journalists for their home game agaist SK Super Nova, sparking backlash among the Latvian football community and, potentially, setting a dangerous precedent for the legitimacy of Virslīga.
Yesterday’s FK Metta versus SK Super Nova match raised a lot of commotion in the Latvian football community but not because of the 2-0 result in favour of the visiting team, but because the scheduled commentator for the match – Edmunds Novickis – and his colleague, Arkādijs Birjuks, were denied entry to the Hanza stadium by on-site security. While Birjuks was simply turned away, Novickis had to retreat to the media offices to provide commentary of the match remotely, leaving those tuning into the broadcast with about 30 minutes of ambient sounds and without commentary.
Novickis and Birjuks are the two leading commentators of Latvian football and, as such, are affiliated with sportacentrs.com – a news media company contracted by the Virslīga to produce and broadcast games of the Latvian championship. Sportacentrs.com are also the leading Latvian-language sports news website, providing written and audiovisual coverage of global sports to domestic audiences.
At the post-match press conference, Metta head coach and co-founder Andris Riherts explained that sportacentrs.com journalists were no longer welcome at Metta home games due to what the club perceived as hostile and dismissive attitude to Metta in a string of recent publications. Riherts added that the individuals turned away could have attended the match had they purchased a match ticket or a season ticket, and expressed his bemusement at why is it that his co-founder – Ģirts Mihelsons – unable to attend the home game of his club (due to a ban by the Latvian Football Federation for abusive behaviour) while journalists in question can.
The SK Super Nova head coach, Ervīns Pērkons, expressed his disappointment with the decision to not honour the accreditations of journalists in questions at his brief post-game press conference, symbolically taking down two miniature Metta flags from the desk upon taking his seat.
Whether Metta attempted to engage with sportacentrs.com to address these perceived injustices in a meaningful way before taking action to restrict access to the media remains unclear.
Earlier today, Metta released official communique, explaining their actions in further detail. There, the club lists a series of perceived offences, where sportacentrs.com articles either avoided to name the club by name, instead referring to the as ‘hosts’ or ‘opponents’ or, in one instance, described the conduct of head coach Andris Riherts as ‘amateurish’. The communique then goes on to confirm that Metta are open to collaboration with media representatives who are ‘professional and respectful’.
Responding to Metta’s complaints, Sportacentrs.com released their own statement where they denied accusations from the club as ‘illogical’ and stated that they will continue to cover Virslīga as before and in line with their editorial guidelines. They further called for constructive dialogue and mutual engagement for the betterment of Latvian football.
Baltic Football News were also present at this game as accredited media and were name-checked by security on entrance. Our experience echoes that of other colleagues on the day, where security enquired to someone by phone whether a particular journalist was allowed to be let in or not.
While Metta’s frustration with how they are portrayed by the leading sports media has been explained by the club, the actions taken on the day remain an alarming precedent. Unlike in Estonia and Lithuania, where individual clubs handle media accreditations to their home games on per-game or per-season basis, this process is centralised under and delegated to the Virslīga in Latvia. In taking unilateral action to recognise some accreditations but not others and, potentially, some individuals journalists but not others, Metta may have undermined the authority and even legitimacy of the Virslīga as a body that represents the top tier of Latvia football and, in addition to accrediting media, also centralises and sells media rights among other things.
What will be the response from Virslīga and how this event will affect the sports media landscape remains to be seen in the coming months.
