Former Sky Sports commentator Martin Tyler has revealed that he has been pronouncing Manchester United skipper Bruno Fernandes’ name wrong and would get ‘laughed out’ if he said it the Portuguese way.
The 78-year-old has enjoyed a long career in the gantry and became known as the voice of the Premier League, though he was replaced as Sky Sports’ lead commentator by Peter Drury at the start of this season.
Tyler has not hung up his microphone just yet, however, and continues to provide commentary for American broadcaster NBC as well as Premier League Productions.
He has now spoken about the difficulties of pronouncing some player names and says he has been deliberately anglicising Fernandes’ because the authentic pronunciation is too alien for English-speaking audiences, even offering an apology to the midfielder.
Speaking on his The Joy Of Football podcast, Tyler explained: ‘Portuguese is really difficult.
‘The Manchester United number eight is Bruno Fer-nanj. And if I said that, I’d be laughed out of the commentary box, wouldn’t I? But that’s what it is.
‘We get sent… it’s very good of the Premier League, they get the players – who must get fed up of doing it every year – they say their name to the camera so that the world broadcasters can get it.
‘And Bruno comes up and goes “Bruno Fer-nanj” and we all call him “Bruno Fer-nan-des”. Bruno, my apologies!’
Asked if commentators have discussions about saying names the same way, Tyler continued: ‘There’s a bit, but I think we all feel [differently]. Some are very linguistically good, some totally find it really difficult and want to anglicise everything.
‘But if you can get access to the player and ask the player.
‘The viewers need consistency really, but when you’ve spoken to a player and he’s made it quite clear that that’s how he wants his name said, you can’t really be responsible for the other commentators if they choose to do it a different way.
‘I think everyone knows in the end. At least now we’ve got the names on the back of the shirts haven’t we.’
Asked which names are the most difficult to pronounce, Tyler added: ‘The Poles are the difficult ones, and the Scandinavians, because they have letters that we don’t have.’
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