The storm over filming athletes: 'If they are not comfortable, let them change clothes'
The famous commentator responded to the new guidelines in athletics competitions: 'They turned the cameramen into perverts, it is also related to the prudishness of society.'
Johan Derksen, a former footballer and one of the most senior and well-known football commentators in the Netherlands, took a short break from football matters to address another issue currently occupying the sports world: the new guidelines intended to prevent the sexual objectification of female athletes during competition broadcasts.
The European Broadcasting Union and European Athletics published a new guide, in which it was recommended, among other things, to avoid low camera angles, prolonged close-ups of certain body parts, and the use of slow-motion replays not intended for professional analysis. Derksen, star of the popular Dutch show 'Vandaag Inside', was not impressed.
'I have been watching the Olympic Games for years, but I have never looked at the athletes as sex symbols,' Derksen said in his podcast. 'Today, they make a big deal out of everything. It is impossible to film these girls in their tight clothes in any way other than how they look there. Therefore, if they want something to change, they should wear looser clothes.'
Derksen continued and attacked the way, according to him, television personnel are presented following the publication of the recommendations:
'Now they present the cameramen and directors as if they are the biggest perverts in the world. As if they are filming close-ups of their buttocks. But at the start, the girls crouch with their buttocks facing backward. It is not filmed with a sexual intent.'
His podcast partner, Henk Spaan, mentioned that male athletes also compete in tight clothing, and Derksen replied: 'They make a big deal out of everything. When you look at cyclists, they also have a bulge in their pants inside the tight suit.'
The 77-year-old football commentator claimed that the entire discussion reflects a broader trend in Dutch society: 'It is also related to the prudishness of society. They make a big deal out of everything and women complain and so on.'
'These girls do not feel that they have a sexual presence when they run,' he added. 'They create the impression that older white men are unable to control themselves when they watch athletics, but that is not the case at all.'
Finally, Derksen extended the criticism to other sports as well: 'If so, then swimming competitions where women dive while wearing very tight swimsuits should also be stopped.'
