- Jeff Stelling presented Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday for 29 years (1994-2023)
- Jonathan Liew wrote a piece for the Telegraph calling the show ‘sewage’ in 2012
- The damage has already been done. Not even beating Liverpool can save Ten Hag – It’s All Kicking off podcast
Jeff Stelling blasted former employers Sky Sports News for paying a journalist who criticised his former show Soccer Saturday in a piece written 12 years ago to appear on their programme.
Stelling was the face of Soccer Saturday for 29 years, Sky Sports’ programme that lasts for most of the day and ran viewers through results and goings-on across the grounds on matchdays.
He left at the end of last term, but has hit out at his old employers for having ‘short memories’ after an appearance from award-winning Guardian writer Jonathan Liew.
Liew was discussing the plans to scrap FA Cup replays from next season – revealed exclusively by Mail Sport on Thursday – and claimed that it was a ‘progressive move’, something which Stelling disagreed with.
‘This is something the top clubs have been pushing for for a while, obviously there are no replays beyond the fifth round, they’re talking about scrapping them for rounds three and four as well,’ said Liew on Sky Sports News on Thursday night.
Jonathan Liew (left) argued that the plans to scrap FA Cup replays in the third and fourth rounds was ‘progressive’
Jeff Stelling hit back and claimed that a more ‘progressive’ move would be for Sky Sports not to pay Liew to appear on the channel
Stelling then added that he has ‘an axe to grind’ with Liew after the Guardian journalist wrote a piece criticising Soccer Saturday 12 years ago, describing Paul Merson as a ‘moron’
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‘There is a huge discussion over what FA Cup replays do for smaller clubs who benefit from the financial windfall of playing two games often on TV against a bigger club and I think it’s false framing of the debate.
’95 or 98 per cent of lower league clubs who need the money from an FA Cup replay aren’t going to get it.
‘If this settlement – which makes sense for things like player welfare and fixture congestion – leads to a slightly more mature discussion on a financial settlement for the whole of the pyramid that benefits all of those teams and makes sure all of them can pay the bills, rather than the two or three that happen to get a Premier League team out of the hat, then I think it’s actually quite a progressive move.’
Stelling then replied to a clip of the discussion on X (formerly Twitter), claiming: ‘A progressive move would be to stop him spouting his nonsense on TV’.
Stelling then added: ‘In fairness I have an axe to grind. In 2012 this person wrote a disgusting piece calling Soccer Saturday sewage and Merse “Moron in Chief”. Yet now SSN pay him . They have short memories. I don’t.’
In a 2012 article for the Telegraph, Liew described Soccer Saturday as ‘chortling, barrel-scraping, cod-football sewage’, and blasted a number of the show’s regular contributors.
He called former Arsenal icon Paul Merson ‘moron-in-chief, the Grand High Moron, the Moron With The Child In His Eyes,’ and compared Chris Kamara to a character from the film Memento who is ‘unable to form new memories’.
Liew then ended the piece by claiming anyone that was unable to get tickets for a Soccer Saturday arena tour could ‘slice your head open’ and ’empty your brains out onto the pavement’ to achieve ‘much the same thing’.
The FA are set to press ahead with plans to scrap FA Cup third-round replays from next season
The plans to scrap replays in the FA Cup comes in the wake of the collapse of the so-called New Deal for Football, a new £900million financial settlement which was blocked by 10 Premier League clubs at a tense meeting on Monday.
Televised third and fourth-round replays are worth £40,000 and £55,000 respectively to each club, who also receive an equal 45 per cent share of gate receipts irrespective of where the tie is played.
The loss of two potential fixtures and the chance of a big pay-day at a Premier League is a big blow for lower division clubs.
League Two Cambridge United banked over £1million from their fourth-round tie against Manchester United in 2015 for example after securing a replay at Old Trafford.