No attempt from Foley to speak any French. What a difference from Wayne Barnes. Embarrassing.
Nigel Owens was asked about speaking french.His reply was basically that he had learnt English as well as Welsh and would we expect him to learn Italian ,Afrikaans , Georgian etc.
Has a fair point, after all most sides will include English speaking players and coaches. Chances are English Is spoken on training grounds anyway.
I had the good fortune to work in a lot of countries around the world, well capital cities mainly, as a technical adviser to management consultants and banks. The teams were always multinational with a number of locals and English was the default language, you couldn't get a job with a management consultancy of investment bank without speaking fluent English.
It really was infeasible for me to learn any of the languages but I always made a point of learning please, thank you and a few the basic words which I'd use with secretaries and in and around the hotel, just to be polite. Its amazing how well that went down, especially in places like Korea.
Given that the top referees can expect to referee a number of games involving French sides I think it shouldn't be beyond them to learn some basic rugby words, again as a matter of courtesy. English is an official language in South Africa so no need to learn Afrikaans and there's probably more native English speakers in the Italian side than Italians
But a few words, same as Georgian, wouldn't go amiss if only for the hotels and you can pick them up on the plane.
Topic: Euro Semi (Read 1426 times)
Always a Wasp