Football is finally being embraced

It's the game's biggest and most influential 'marquee' and it's got many pundits talking.

The football family in New South Wales is abuzz with and surprised by the lavish coverage of its favourite game by News Limited, publisher of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph.

The big-selling newspapers have not always been seen to be too kind to the round-ball game in Australia.

A fight between half a dozen idiots at a game was always likely to be turned into a riot while some columnists were only ever keen to dabble with the game when it was on its knees rather than when it was on a high.

The game is certainly healthy if not booming with the A-League drawing big names and record crowds, both in the stands and on TV, and Australia on the cusp of reaching its third straight FIFA World Cup.

Football is the biggest story of Australian sport at the moment.

Which is probably why there is no sign of the two papers' unsympathetic approach to football as they continue to devote pages and back pages to the game in a turnaround that is as dramatic and spectacular as a deft Del Piero free kick.

Alex Brown, head of sport of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, believes football deserves all the positive coverage it is getting and if the purple patch continues he sees no reason for the papers to change their attitude.

Is the Telegraph's approach to football a result of a set of positive circumstances or a definite policy shift?

"It's neither. I think the big move was made last season to be honest when we made the decision to really open up the pages to football," Brown said.

"If you go back through the archives from last year you'll see a big shift in the coverage we gave football in 2011-2012. We regularly gave the game a two-page spread or better and quite often an element on the back page.

"I think our coverage has been magnified this season by the arrival of Del Piero, Heskey and Ono plus there is also another team in Sydney to talk about now.

"But to me the big shift was last year although it did not seem to register as much attention as this year."

So is the Telegraph acknowledging that its treatment of the game in the past left a lot to be desired?

"I've been in this job for about 20 months and it is not for me to talk about the past but what we are trying to do now is treat all sports on merit.

"There are readers and advertisers out there who are interested in different sports and to be the paper with the best sports coverage in the country which is what we aspire to be we need to cover all of them faithfully.

"After the initial scepticism it seems football people are beginning to warm to it (expanded coverage) which is good."

Does the Telegraph find football players more accessible than their rugby league or Australian football counterparts?

"That's another big thing with football. Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, Central Coast Mariners and Newcastle Jets have all opened their doors to the media which has made it easy for us to tell their stories.

"We certainly have had our challenges with league in terms of access because there are good clubs and not-so-good ones, the AFL has been pretty good after being hard to deal with a couple of years ago but the football clubs have been tremendous.

"There are still a few access issues at national level with the Socceroos but at club level it's been very good."

The Daily and Sunday Telegraph also surprised many people by starting to call the game football not soccer. Why did it take so long for the penny to drop?

"The decision to change from 'soccer' to 'football' was made because we thought it was the right thing to do.

"We thought that Sydney's sporting market is mature enough to accept that and there has been no negative response from other codes.

"The football section of the community has been really happy with it and since we want to talk to the football people we felt calling the game what they call it was a straightforward decision, to be honest."

Is football getting a good run at the moment by default, because there is no NRL and AFL and because rugby union is struggling?

"It's a meritocracy. That's how we view our coverage. We want all sports that we cover to be open to media access … that's the key scenario for us.

"At the moment football has some great stories to tell so unsurprisingly to me the result has been a great coverage. But again I challenge you to go back to our clippings and you will see that our coverage of past overseas marquees was very expansive then too.

"So we view all these things through merit and hopefully football will continue to deserve this level of coverage."

Football is spending a fair bit of money on advertising in your papers and in return it is getting pretty good space in your pages. Sorry for being a bit cynical but is this 'give and take' the way forward for the modern print media?

"No. You will find that our commercial people have an 'official paper' deal with Sydney FC and the Wanderers.

"But all that this guaranteed in terms of commercial obligations was a pre-season liftout and team posters.

"Everything else has been on editorial merit. There has been no commercial imperative of minimum space requirements or anything like that.

"We did the same thing with the AFL at the start of its season with liftouts, wraps and posters that were all commercially underwritten."

So can football fans expect the Teles to keep giving the game a fair go from now on?

"Yes, but I would argue that we have been doing that since the start of last season. I think football will always be treated on its merits as far as I'm concerned.

"While the doors are open in terms of player access and the stories are compelling we will be there to cover them. We'd like to be the first choice of football readers in Sydney.

"Given our policy to treat sport on merit there should be every expectation that football will always get a fair run."