{"id":8621,"date":"2010-06-21T04:57:22","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T03:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=8621"},"modified":"2010-06-30T01:56:33","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T00:56:33","slug":"the-curse-of-itv-england-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2010\/06\/21\/the-curse-of-itv-england-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curse of ITV"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For most football fans their collective memory of a World Cup<\/a> comes from the television coverage, but after two mysteriously poor displays in South Africa, some fans<\/a> are asking whether ITV are cursed<\/a> when it comes to screening England games.<\/p>\n

The channel attracted criticism after two high profile blunders in the current tournament. The network inexplicably missed England\u2019s opening goal of the tournament<\/a> against the USA on their HD channel.<\/p>\n

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This was followed by the dismissal of their pundit Robbie Earle<\/a> after a bizarre episode in which tickets in his name somehow ended up in the hands of Dutch women engaging in an ambush marketing stunt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These gaffes come after a series of highly embarrassing and costly mistakes over the past 2 years: Everton\u2019s winning goal against Liverpool in a live FA Cup replay in 2009 was ruined by a rogue Tic-Tac advert<\/a>; a high profile Nike World Cup advert<\/a> was cut short during the Champions League final last month and an expensive Adidas advert<\/a> was also the victim of technical problems.<\/p>\n

A quick online search on Google or Twitter<\/a> (try entering \u2018ITV England curse<\/a>\u2019) reveals a superstition<\/a> amongst some England fans that ITV are a jinx on the national side<\/a> during a World Cup.<\/p>\n

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On paper this is ridiculous. I\u2019m sure Fabio Capello<\/a> and previous England managers didn\u2019t structure their team talks around which channel was showing the match.<\/p>\n

It would seem tactics, fitness and players hitting form at the right time would play a much more important role in a team\u2019s success at a major international football tournament.<\/p>\n

However, given the role that chance undoubtedly plays in football, it can be a game that inspires some remarkably superstitious behaviour:<\/p>\n