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It’s challenging for an Asian to talk about Asian football: Rhysh Roshan Rai on life as a commentator

For followers of Asian football, Rhysh Roshan Rai is a familiar name. The Singaporean footballer-turned-commentator has been the voice of several competitions including the AFC Champions League, AFC Cup, AFF Championship and J.League over the years.

Roshan, who had a brief professional career with Singapore clubs Balestier Khalsa FC, Singapore Armed Forces FC and Home United, has donned the roles of a coach, programme producer, MC, writer, commentator, pundit and presenter since hanging up his boots.

Bringing in the experience and tactical nous of having played in the top tier of Asian club football and then having earned his coaching badges, the 37-year-old former midfielder has been a breath of fresh air for those who tune in on televisions to catch the game across the continent.

Perhaps there was no surprise as to why Roshan went into broadcasting after injuries cut short his playing career. His father was a journalist with Singapore-based English daily The Straits Times and he had already earned a degree in mass communication before he went on to play in the Singaporean top division.

But, even with that footballing pedigree and media training, Roshan says it can be difficult for a person in a minority group with a non-British accent to get embraced by some in the sports media industry.

“I think it can be challenging for an Asian person to become a voice of Asian football coverage,” says Roshan, who has appeared on FOX Sports Asia, ESPN Asia, Disney Plus and IMG among others.

“We have grown up watching football with a British accent and for some, it might be difficult to accept someone with a different accent talking about the game. Sadly, there have been occasions when I have been told by certain people in the industry that they think a Caucasian face or accent adds pedigree or class to their coverage,” he says.

Roshan says: “Sometimes what they do gets appreciated more than what someone like me does.

“I sometimes wonder whether my accent is good enough or holds me back, for example, to do solo commentary. At the same time, I feel why should someone who doesn’t know much about our football and is not as passionate about it do that job.”

Roshan indeed has a point. Oftentimes, commentary on football matches in some of the biggest games in Asian football are below par. Sometimes, it almost feels like the commentator reading out of the Wikipedia entries of the clubs and players when going through quiet periods in the games.

Getting the research done

But that is where Roshan stands out. Maybe he needs to be in order to survive in the industry. He goes into commentary jobs with proper research and it shows. From explaining the playing style of different teams to the viewers to getting the names of the players from a myriad of countries right, he leaves no stones unturned.

“The research, I feel, is the most important thing going into a game. If it is a league that I am very familiar with, it can take a few hours or for new competitions and teams, it could be a day or two. I try to jot down as much information on players, coaches, tactics and previous results as well as some interesting statistics and facts,” says Roshan.

But these are not easy things to do, especially when you are covering Asian football teams. When Lao League 1 champions Young Elephants face Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Crown FC in an AFC Cup group stage fixture, for instance, there is not much information available online.

You can count yourselves very lucky if you find the highlights from one of their games anywhere on the internet.

Embed from Getty Images

“Yes, it is difficult. If you are working on a Premier League or Bundesliga game, it will be much easier as these are players we are very much familiar with. But that is not the case with some of the leagues in Asia,” Roshan says.

He says: “I try to watch the games of the teams as much as I can, but sometimes they are not available to watch anywhere. So I try to speak to people who are familiar with the teams – maybe a regional journalist or I try to reach out to the fans on Twitter.

“I’ll go on Soccerway and TransferMarkt to get to know more about the players. I look up to see if there are any articles that I could find. Anything that helps me better prepare for a game, I try to do.”

What’s in a name?

That also includes getting the right pronunciation when it comes to the names of the players – be it Vietnam ace Nguyen Quang Hai, Laos veteran Soukaphone Vongchiengkham or South Korean attacker Oh Hyeon-gyu.

We have often heard commentators mispronouncing the names of players during some of the biggest international tournaments like the FIFA World Cup and it is something that has become a talking point in recent years.

Derek Rae, the voice of the FIFA video games and ESPN’s lead commentator for Bundesliga where more and more Asian players have been making a move, recently commented on the issue: “It’s a huge sign of respect. It’s respect for a language and a culture. I realise not everyone is a linguist and not everyone can do that, but we ought to be trying more than we are.”

Why does Roshan think this is important? “I have sat at home watching some commentators butcher the names of footballers. As a commentator, you are someone who is held up to a high standard and accuracy matters in broadcasting and journalism for that matter,” he says.

“It is also about respect. Even at a human level, I can’t keep mispronouncing the name of someone who I have been colleagues with for a year. I believe it is disrespectful as you are not taking the effort to get to know even the basics about the person,” Roshan says.

But how does he know he is getting those names right? “If it’s a big production like the 2022 AFF Championship, I ask the broadcast managers to get the national team officials to record how each of the names in the squad are pronounced,” he says.

“Sometimes I talk to people from that country and even do some Google searches. I don’t think I always get it 100 percent right, but it is important to put in that effort at least.”

Finding the root cause

We have seen pundits like Roy Keane thrash teams and individual players on camera after a poor display. But Roshan is someone who likes to dissect situations when mistakes are made during a game rather than merely point fingers at the player in question.

“During my early years on TV, I would have done what most people do. I would have been very critical of the player committing the mistake. But I think experience has taught me to look more at why the mistake happened,” Roshan says.

“I will still say on air if a bad mistake was made. But I don’t feel it’s right for me to go and kill the player. So I’ll think of it as a coach. They made a mistake but as teammates, how could others have helped the player? So, I do the commentary and my analysis together as things don’t really happen in isolation in football.

“Everyone can say that it is a bad mistake, but how and why did it happen? That is how you add value to it as a commentator or a pundit,” he adds.

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Author

  • Adwaidh Rajan

    Adwaidh Rajan is a journalist with more than 10 years of experience covering sports. He has written for Indian newspapers The Times of India and The New Indian Express as well as websites like ESPN and FOX Sports Asia.

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