‘Cocky, meddling ball boys are on the rise – golf equipment like PSG ought to be punished for it’
BRENT A GOB: This week, Harry’s taking aim at the PSG’s meddling ball boys – and at the predictable, one-size-fits-all nature of football highlights
Our man Harry Brent is raging in his latest column
Few things in modern football p*** me off as much as the rise in d***head ball boys.
We’ve reached Vinicius Jr-levels of “they deserve a good slap” with these cocky little gremlins – who show as much interest in doing their job as Marcus Rashford does in tracking back.
The scenes in Paris last week were more of a shambles than the Frankenstein’s monster of a project Chelsea’s top brass still somewhat insist isn’t sh**. Manuel Neuer – a man with more medals than a North Korean general – had to ask Bayern’s social media team to guard a spare ball behind the goal for him.
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Why? Because PSG’s ball boys were acting like clowns – playing keep-away while staring Neuer in the face with the kind of smug, main-character-syndrome arrogance usually reserved for Ed Sheeran when he has an Ipswich Town promotion celebration to crash.
Why have we normalised being an unbearable, self-important prat? Why do the authorities do what Trent Alexander-Arnold does when there’s a winger to mark and just turn a blind eye?
Whether it’s the clubs instructing them to be “tactical” or just their own narcissistic desire to go viral, this is more of a cancer on the game than toenail offsides and Gianni Infantino put together.
We need to be as ruthless with these kids as Chelsea are with their “sign every s*** goalkeeper on the planet” policy. Fine the clubs, ban the kids – and if the little twerps don’t pack it in, let the players do to them what Kurt Zouma does to cats.
Down the Tube
These days, football highlights on YouTube are as formulaic as Paul Scholes is miserable. Like Arsenal taking a throw-in, they almost always last three minutes. No more. No less.
Whether it’s a soul-crushing draw or a nine-goal bonanza, it makes no difference. Like Noni Madueke taking on a full back, it’s always the same: predictable, one-dimensional, and ending in disappointment.
The fact that TNT Sports reduced the 5-4 epic between PSG and Bayern to just the goals – hacking a Champions League classic into a three-minute TikTok-friendly slurry – is the sort of crime against football fans that £12 stadium pints and post-match analysis from ‘Angry Ginge’ are made of.
It’s algorithmic communism. Every match is equal, and every narrative is repressed. Like Chelsea, the beautiful game has been taken over by folks who fundamentally misunderstand what success looks like.
If the plan is to feed us what a computer says we want – this surface-level slop, rather than actual substance – then they’ll lose viewers faster than Joe Biden loses his train of thought.
I get it, the modern world is fast-paced and most folks have the Jose Mourinho gene – a total inability to commit long-term to anything. But if we keep letting the spreadsheet-saddos lobotomise the sport like this, we’ll be left with a product so bland it might as well come with permanent Lee Dixon commentary.
Sky Sports discounted Premier League and EFL package
Sky has slashed the price of its Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle ahead of the 2025/26 season, saving members £192 and offering more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more.
Sky will show at least 215 live Premier League games next season, an increase of up to 100 more.
