Steven Cohen talks about threats, sponsor boycotts, new radio show (Part 1 of 2)

Steven Cohen

On August 21, Steven Cohen stopped production of seven year-old World Soccer Daily (WSD), the nation’s only daily soccer radio show, after he and his family reportedly received death threats and anti-Semitic hate mail. His wife and young stepdaughters, ages eight and 12, were also threatened by angry fans who objected to his contentious statements about the Hillsborough tragedy where 96 fans died in a stadium accident in 1989.

Cohen is the target of an aggressive boycott of his radio and TV show sponsors and supporters. Earlier this summer, Cohen also lost his position of five years as co-host of the popular Monday TV show Fox Football Fone-In when his annual contract was not renewed.

Cohen is starting a subscription radio show called World Football Daily with similar content, a project that can’t be derailed by sponsor boycotts.

The sad history of Hillsborough has been thoroughly gone over by government, media, and fans with most agreeing it could have been averted with better stadium management and police direction.  But Cohen put some of the onus on fans and emotions erupted again, resulting in a potentially career-ending boycott and death threats for the media personality and his family.

Boston Pro Soccer Examiner spoke at length with Cohen last night about the boycott, the threats, and his right to voice his opinion in the media.

We also spoke with Steve Nicol, head coach of the New England Revolution and former Liverpool defender who was on the field at Hillsborough, visited the hospital as fans struggled for life, and attended funerals. Nicol’s own experience with the tragedy is recounted in a moving interview by Andrew Hush, and Nicol made the following statement to Boston Pro Examiner today at Gillette Stadium.

“I certainly don’t agree with what Steven said and he knows that,” said Nicol.  “But I certainly don’t agree with any hooligan or any person who’s going to make threats. I haven’t heard them personally, but they’re not good, not right. I wouldn’t even give them the time to talk about it, it’s not helping. I absolutely don’t agree with anybody making any sort of threats to Steven at all.”

“We all say things that are going to upset somebody,” continued Nicol, recently suspended two matches for comments to referees. “We all think that when we say stuff it’s right and sometimes it’s not and sometimes it upsets people, but the way to change it is not by threatening people, absolutely not.”

Interview with Steven Cohen, Part 1

LE: How many listeners did you have on World Soccer Daily?

Cohen: The numbers I was told were in the 300,000 a week range on XM.  But for the ranking on iTunes, we were in the top 10 of sports broadcasts, not just soccer broadcasts.  And there were over 300,000 people a day downloading it.

LE: How dependent were you on advertising?

Cohen: Very. It was our revenue stream.

LE: How did the situation unravel?

Cohen: I made the comments on April 13, I apologized for any hurt feelings on May 18. It wasn’t enough.

A boycott is when somebody says, ‘I’m boycotting this show because I don’t like the host, I don’t like what he’s saying, and I’m not going to support the sponsors.’ OK, fair enough.  But what they did was something much more than that. They went after me personally and they went after every client we had. They bombarded them, they threatened them, and the people that ran the witchhunt will tell you that no one in their group did anything of the sort, but I have the evidence that they did. It was beyond aggressive.

LE: What were their particular complaints?

Cohen: One of the things they took umbrage with was that I said there were ticketless fans there and they didn’t help. The Taylor Report, that they like to cite at every breath, clearly agrees that there were ticketless fans there. There was a riot at a game yesterday in England between West Ham and Millwall and the police are saying that a lot of it had to do with a lot of people showing up at games without tickets.

LE: When I put myself in their shoes, I imagine when people's children, family members, and friends died to watch their favorite football team, some people’s hearts stopped that day. It’s hard to imagine that grief. They probably love and protect the team to honor what their loved ones loved.

Cohen: It’s tragic, but does that mean we should never be able to bring it up? Should we never be able to bring up the Lockerbie air disaster? Should we never be able to bring up the 23 fans that died in a similar event in the Ivory Coast in March? What about 9/11? When do we stop, why can we not talk about it? Why can’t we say, 20 years on, ‘I don’t personally agree with the Taylor Report.’ I think some great things came out of it, no question.  But I don’t completely agree with it, much in the same way that I don’t completely agree with the Warren Commission or the 9/11 Commission.

This has become the third rail of football and a lot of people use it as a stick to beat people with and go completely overboard. Of course it’s tragic for the 96 families, of course.  Just like it’s tragic for the 3000-plus families of 9/11 and the 270 families of the people in the Lockerbie plane crash. But if we were in the airline industry, would we be saying, ‘You can’t talk about it, it’s just too painful?’

LE: Have you imagined yourself as the father of the two teenage girls that died?

Cohen: No, I couldn’t possibly put myself in their shoes and I would never want to be in their shoes.

LE: What has been the evolution of your heart since this began?

Cohen: It races a lot faster than it did out of fear. It’s not funny. Something that is so lost in this whole thing is that when we go back to the issue of Hillsborough and 96 fans dying at a football game, of course it is awful and tragic.  But 20 years later someone exercised his free speech and some people initiated a witch hunt that has gone from death threats to anti-Semitism back to death threats to threats of kidnapping to threats of harming young children. I sometimes wonder if we’re not simply realizing where home plate is here.

LE: Where is home plate? Why is it important that controversy can be debated in a public forum?

Cohen: Because everything should be able to be debated in a public forum. People should be able to talk about things and if people don’t want to listen they should simply turn the channel, turn it off, not support their sponsors, fair enough. But it’s not being debated, that’s my point.  They don’t want a debate on it. They want you to believe what they believe and if you don’t believe it and you have the audacity, temerity, to utter the words publicly they will come after you and they will try to destroy you.

LE: But what is the benefit of debating a heated controversy in a public forum?

Cohen: Each side should be able to get their point out.

LE: So everyone gets their point out, everyone is yelling at each other, then what happens?

Cohen: People should in civilized society simply be able to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to have to agree to disagree.’

Read Part 2 of Boston Pro Soccer Examiner's interview with Steven Cohen, where he discusses mob mentality, tribal allegiances, and American soccer fans, here.

More Links:

• The Justice Campaign
• Steven Cohen World Soccer Daily broadcast April 23, 2009
• We Want Him off the Air
  
• Steven Cohen blames Liverpool fans for Hillsborough disaster
• Hillisborough disaster, in memorium with music

Follow Boston Pro Soccer and LE Eisenmenger on twitter!