ITV Sport has announced that Clive Tyldesley has been demoted from his role as the channel’s lead football commentator after 22 years.
Tyldesley will be replaced by Sam Matterface from the start of next season, but the broadcaster says he will continue to work with them on its future football coverage.
In a statement, ITV said:
“After 22 years voicing the biggest matches in the game, Clive Tyldesley will no longer hold the role of ITV’s main football commentator from the start of next season.
“Clive will remain part of the ITV Sport set up, continuing to commentate with the team, particularly at major tournaments.
“Over more than two decades as lead commentator for ITV, Clive has guided millions of viewers through Champions League finals, European Championships and World Cups as one of the most familiar voices in the sport.”
Tyldesley held his lead role at ITV Sport for over two decades, replacing the late Brian Moore after the 1998 World Cup finals in France.
Since then, he has led the ITV commentary team at ten successive World Cups and European Championships since 2000, as well as being the voice of ITV’s coverage of nine FA Cup finals, 17 UEFA Champions League finals and numerous England internationals.
ITV have replaced me as their main football commentator… pic.twitter.com/S8UOjvwEck
— Clive Tyldesley (@CliveTyldesley) July 14, 2020
Commenting on ITV’s decision to replace him as their senior football commentator, Tyldesley said via a video message on Twitter:
“I was told about three weeks ago, so I have had some time to get my head around the decision. But I haven’t got my head around it.
“To be clear, this is ITV’s decision, not mine. I’m upset, annoyed, baffled.
“I would have been entrusted with commentating on the Euro 2020 final for them less than 48 hours ago, but now I won’t be commentating on any of the big England games in the coming year, and I’m going to miss them.
“I love this job, and its gone. Why? I don’t know. I do not know exactly why this decision has been taken.
“One or two sites are reporting that I have been sacked, well I guess I have from one job, but I’ve done nothing wrong.
“Like everybody else in football, I am a matter of opinion. I totally respect ITV’s right to change their opinion of me. ITV have been really good for me and I will carry on as their number two commentator.
“But let me make it quite clear. I have not stepped down, I have been moved aside. I’ve not even thought about winding down towards retirement or anything like that.
“I’m really disappointed about this. I don’t know why I am being replaced. I’m well, I’m able, I’m available, and I’m going to miss the England games so much, even more than I miss the Champions League games, and that’s all.”
ITV has confirmed that talkSPORT commentator Sam Matterface, formerly a presenter on Sky Sports News, who has worked with the broadcaster on major football tournaments since 2014, will take over from Tyldesley as the channel’s lead commentator from the start of the new season.
He will become ITV’s lead voice across its football output, which is currently sparse outside of major tournaments, with highlights of England’s UEFA Nations League matches its next scheduled football coverage in September, but the broadcaster will return to covering live FA Cup games from the 2021/22 season onwards.
ITV will share live coverage with the BBC of the European Championships to be played in the summer of 2021, while Matterface will also continue his role as radio station talkSPORT’s chief football commentator.
In a statement, Niall Sloane, ITV’s director of sport, said:
“On behalf of ITV Sport, I would like to thank Clive for his superb work leading our commentary on some of the biggest occasions in world football throughout his outstanding career with us.
“We are very glad he will continue with us and look forward to working with him on many more occasions in the future.”
According to the Daily Telegraph’s Sam Wallace, Tyldesley was told by Sloane in a meeting two years ago that he would be replaced as ITV’s lead football commentator after his current contract with the broadcaster expired this summer, when the European Championship were meant to have been staged.
But Tyldesley is understood to have assumed that the comment from Sloane, who has been a senior sports executive at both the BBC and ITV over the last two decades, was “just a means of motivating him and did not take it seriously – believing himself to be the best man for the job”.
Clive Tyldesley v ITV Sport goes into extra-time: broadcaster told him he was being replaced two years ago https://t.co/KmCgAgPupr
— Sam Wallace (@SamWallaceTel) July 14, 2020
Surprised that Clive Tyldesley is being replaced as ITV’s main football commentator. Always captured the big moments in the big games well, CL finals, big internationals. His successor, Sam Matterface, is very good, loves a stat. Painting the picture remains the key skill.
— Henry Winter (@henrywinter) July 14, 2020
Corrected.
Two things can be true at once. Sam Matterface is a highly talented, born commentator. Congratulations to him. Equally ITV’s demotion of Clive Tyldesley is bizarre. TV can be brutal, but Tyldesley is still a master so why take the No 1 job off him?— Paul Hayward (@_PaulHayward) July 14, 2020
Clive is baffled, angry and upset, and rightly so. One of the best commentators this country has ever produced, still at the top of his game and still up for doing what he does. ITV – you’ve made a ridiculous mistake. https://t.co/nONmJwU7jv
— Sachin Nakrani (@SachinNakrani) July 14, 2020
Clive Tyldesley began his broadcasting career in local radio in Nottingham and Liverpool, before joining Granada Television in 1987.
Alongside football, he also covered a number of other sports in his time with the north-west ITV regional station, including rugby league, cricket and golf, before taking up his first network position as a reporter on ITV’s popular football magazine show ‘Saint and Greavsie’.
He commentated on matches at the 1990 World Cup and Euro 92 for ITV, before taking up an offer to join the BBC in the summer of 1992.
During his time with the corporation, Tyldesley worked as a commentator on Match of the Day and Sportsnight, and was part of the BBC commentary teams covering the 1994 World Cup, Euro 96 and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but he only commentated on 4 live matches in as many years and was subsequently offered a chance to return to ITV following the Atlanta Games, as the channel’s number two football commentator.
He did rejoin ITV as deputy to the late Brian Moore, who retired as the channel’s chief football commentator after the 1998 World Cup final in France, with Tyldesley taking over the lead role from Moore at the start of the 1998/99 season.
Since then, Tyldesley has commentated to tens of millions of UK television viewers on some of the most memorable football moments broadcast on ITV over the last 22 years, including ‘that night in Barcelona’ when Manchester United won the Champions League and England’s run to the 2018 World Cup semi-finals.
With ITV’s football portfolio outside of major tournaments declining in recent seasons, Tyldesley has also been commentating on live Champions League matches for BT Sport and Premier League games on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service.
Follow Clive Tyldesley on Twitter – @CliveTyldesley
–
–
