We seem to hear the same tired chorus every time a governing body, a political party or a disgruntled individual wants to squirm out of a predicament of their own making.

Blame the media, the perennial whipping boys. After all, you can't trust the Press, they have their own agenda, it's all a grand conspiracy! If we've heard it once, we've heard it a thousand times.

And it was the same old story at this week's long overdue Bermuda Football Association press conference supposedly called to explain the confused events before and during Bermuda's calamitous World Cup campaign.

Alas, as well as an explanation of sorts, as might have been expected we had to endure another attack on the media. Silly us, we might have known it was all our fault in the first place.

If such thinking wasn't so misguided, it would verge on the hilarious.

And the sad thing is, there are so many seemingly sensible people within the BFA who are actually willing to use the media as a cop-out for their own shortcomings. What hope is there for the game? Tuesday's gathering at the Department of Youth and Sports was intended to throw some light on what happened behind the scenes as the national soccer team blew a golden opportunity to go further than any Island team before it in the world's most prestigious tournament.

There had been accusations from players that a lack of courtesy and communication from those within the administration had undermined team spirit.

There had been grumblings from some of the coaches that they lacked the necessary support. The public were left totally confused as to why neither of our English pros, Shawn Goater and Kyle Lightbourne, were brought back for the crucial second leg match against Antigua. And then of course there was the fiasco surrounding Clyde Best and the non-renewal of his contract.

Through it all the BFA remained diplomatically silent. And on Tuesday, president Neville Tyrrell made no apology for that. It was, he said, "a deliberate stance adopted by the Executive Committee'' -- that is, the gate-paying public were deliberately kept in the dark. Not that that is particularly unusual.

To his great credit, Tyrrell admitted the BFA had made some mistakes from which the Association had learned.

And he also has to be applauded for refusing publicly to apportion any blame for much of what happened on the technical staff, Best and his coaches, although privately it is believed he often felt let down. (It has since transpired that the executive committee and the coaches made a pact, agreeing not to criticise each other in public).

But having taken that stance, Tyrrell then takes aim at an all too easy target -- the media, who at one point he compares to Bermuda's "opposition''.

What arrant nonsense. I can only speak for the sports department at The Royal Gazette , but I don't believe much more could have been done through these pages to support Bermuda, short of pulling on a team jersey.

Prior to the campaign, this newspaper produced a `World Cup special' supplement complete with photos and information of every player in the squad, interviews with the coaches, and a run-down on the opposition. And, yes, we hoped it would boost sales, but certainly more importantly for those involved in its production we hoped it would spark a flame that would ignite community spirit and get the country behind their national team.

Throughout the ties against BVI and Antigua, we sent reporters and photographers with the squad, home and away, talked with the players and coaching staff, and by and large provided blanket coverage.

That's our job. And we don't expect any commendation.

Yet there are those within the BFA who seemingly think we should go further.

We should travel with the team as cheerleaders, reporting on the positive and ignoring the negative.

But as was pointed out to Tyrrell on Tuesday, the media are not public relations officers for the BFA. Our duty is not to the team or the governing body, but to our readers.

And if things go badly wrong, as they did in this campaign, it's our job to inform our readers why -- with or without the help of the BFA. If they choose to remain silent, that's their prerogative. But then don't whine when we go elsewhere to search for the truth.

The media is on nobody's side.

The BFA, an organisation heavily supported by the taxpayer and those who contribute through the turnstiles, has a duty to keep the public informed. On that score they failed miserably, and it is futile for them to now attempt to lay blame on those journalists who would have willingly helped them get their message across had they cared to communicate.

Neville Tyrrell is now facing a leadership challenge, ironically not because of what he has done, but what he hasn't.

An up-front explanation of what decisions were being made in the interests of soccer and why they were being made would have gone a long way to alleviating the public's concerns and their ultimate distrust over the past six months.

The BFA would do well to take a leaf out of the book of Bermuda Cricket Board of Control and Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association, whose respective presidents El James and David Lambert continually make themselves available to the media regardless of the issues under debate.

Tyrrell's statement to the media, printed in full on Page 23 of today's Gazette , goes some way to explaining the predicaments faced by the BFA in what were often difficult circumstances.

But sadly, it's too little, too late. The damage has been done.

Football will go on, but whether Tyrrell, who during the first years of his tenure served the sport admirably, continues to hold the reins now remains to be seen.

-- ADRIAN ROBSON