No more onion bags?

[Jackeens]

Is this the end for Tommy Smyth, possibly the most hated football commentator in history?

US sport fans will be hearing a lot less of Tommy Smyth, and his many irritating catchphrases, now that ESPN have lost Champions League rights

That breeze you feel gusting in from the Atlantic is thousands of soccer fans in the United States sighing with relief. For the news is in that Fox Soccer Channel will be broadcasting the Champions League next season. Which means that fans will be hearing a lot less of quite possibly the world's most hated sports commentator, Tommy Smyth.

For readers outside Smyth's extensive broadcasting reach, he is the "colour man" for ESPN. "There's a petition on the internet which apparently has about 500 signatures to get me fired," said Smyth in a recent interview with the Sunday Independent in Dublin. "One guy emails religiously calling me a scum bag and saying that my mother should have had me aborted. I get a lot of shit."

In 2007, while on a trip to Australia – where ESPN is also broadcast – Smyth was the victim of an internet death threat from a soccer fan who claimed they'd pay "good money for someone to put a bullet in his head".

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/apr/15/tommy-smyth-us-soccer-espn

[nickgutierrez]

1. I'll miss listening to Derek Rae, if this is true.

But, yeah - Smyth is awful to listen to. Can he come up with at least one other way to describe a goal? Does everything have to "bulge the old onion bag"?

[Jackeens]

2. LOL...I'm relieved I don't have to listen to the 'onion bag' nonsense, it would DO my head in!

[abqmufc]

3. How is FSC and its announcers better than Tommy Smyth and ESPN.....

True Tommy Smyth is annoying and as a United supporter for over 20 years I always am forced to endure him during Champions League matches as ESPN always shows United matches. But the alternative Fox Soccer Channel is not a better option. There in studio announcers are horrible. For Italian league matches they call the game from the studio in LA. Do we really want FSC to call the games via a booth in LA and not at the European great grounds?

Also FSC has yet to jump into the 21st century and have HD, They claim it is coming but when.

I'll take Tommy Smyth over Max B and the rest at FSC. Thank the lord we have Setanta a proper football channel.

As for the death threats, that crosses the line.