It is a way of life I’ve been told but I some­times ask my­self what did we do to de­serve this? Many of us in the sport­ing are­na have to face sev­er­al en­coun­ters where un­so­licit­ed ad­vice comes our way.

Per­haps it’s be­cause I talk less and can be a good lis­ten­er or maybe I look like I need help. What­ev­er the rea­son, there is just no es­cape. The same goes for a lot of oth­ers in the sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty from ath­letes to of­fi­cials, ref­er­ees, man­agers, kit men, fa­cil­i­ty man­agers, grounds­men and the list can go on.

There’s this guy, seem­ing­ly in his late 30s who works at the NP Sta­tion which I fre­quent­ly vis­it. No dis­re­spect to him but he’s been there for years pump­ing fu­el in­to peo­ple’s ve­hi­cles but al­ways has ad­vice for me on what he be­lieves is best for na­tion­al foot­ball. And even when I re­spect­ful­ly pro­ceed to hear him out with­out that deep “are you be­ing se­ri­ous” stare, he still man­ages to ver­bal­ly at­tack me be­cause he as­sumes I am not both­er­ing to take him on.

From who should cap­tain the na­tion­al team since the 2013 Gold Cup, to what tac­tics Stephen Hart and Den­nis Lawrence should have ap­plied, why the Home of Foot­ball (Cou­va) should have been in Ma­yaro and the lat­est, why Robert Hadad should try to get ad­vice from Sepp Blat­ter on how to run foot­ball.

Se­ri­ous­ly? That one made me send the win­dows up faster than I usu­al­ly do when the rain starts pour­ing down. I al­most drove off be­fore my tank was not near­ly read­ing half-filled.

Giv­ing or re­ceiv­ing un­so­licit­ed ad­vice can be a dou­ble-edged sword in any form of busi­ness. There are times when it may be worth lis­ten­ing to, very thought­ful and help­ful. How­ev­er, there are oth­er times when it doesn’t come across very well. I guess it is some­thing that per­sons heav­i­ly in­volved must be able to un­der­go with­out over­re­act­ing, in­stead, main­tain­ing poise and show­ing some kind of re­spect to the source.

The thing is, some­times all we want is those same things in re­turn. The thing about sport is al­most every­one fol­lows it in a big way and be­lieve they can re­late to it and have a right to press home their views, sim­i­lar to pol­i­tics.  

Too many times peo­ple of­fer con­fus­ing, ridicu­lous coach­ing ex­pla­na­tions. You lis­ten for a minute, you browse through the com­ments quick­ly and just go back to your pre­vi­ous rou­tine. Lis­ten, most of us are de­cent enough and we too are al­ways try­ing to find ways to im­prove our craft and al­so help oth­ers. But don't take our hu­mil­i­ty as a sign of weak­ness.

You re­al­ly shouldn't be mak­ing dis­re­spect­ful com­ments about the coach's team se­lec­tion, or the play­er's choice of pass, if it is you are the bus dri­ver. It's like me as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al ad­vis­ing the nurse as to why she should al­low me to stand rather than sit when ap­ply­ing the PCR COVID-19 test.

With the ad­vent of so­cial me­dia, it's not like 15 years ago when one's ad­vice or com­ments stayed in their im­me­di­ate cir­cle. It now reach­es tar­get­ed per­sons faster and clear­er than be­fore and eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble by thou­sands on the web.

Walk­ing up to a stranger and giv­ing them un­in­vit­ed coach­ing tips or ad­vice on how they should do their job if you have no proven track record or haven’t even at­tempt­ed to ease in­to the con­ver­sa­tion be­fore un­leash­ing your as­sault is a ma­jor no-no. You see, most times it’s not just a quick point­er but rather the per­son or group step­ping com­plete­ly over the line.

Un­so­licit­ed ad­vice can al­so make per­sons, ath­letes and oth­ers in the are­na feel stressed, of­fend­ed and even hurt de­pend­ing on the man­ner in which it is de­liv­ered and the tim­ing of it. Even when it comes from the peo­ple who know us, loves us and wants the best for us, un­so­licit­ed ad­vice can be seen as crit­i­cism and cause us to in­ter­nalise gen­er­al­i­sa­tions and as­sump­tions that just aren’t true. It is im­por­tant for us to un­der­stand this al­so when we are the ones of­fer­ing it or at least think­ing about do­ing so.

There are a lot of rea­sons that peo­ple give us un­war­rant­ed ad­vice. Your team­mate might give you un­want­ed ad­vice be­cause he’s con­cerned for you and wants the best for you. Your cowork­er might gen­uine­ly want to help you or make things eas­i­er for you…but there may al­so be more to it than that. Some­times they re­al­ly be­lieve it is their right and that they are more equipped or ed­u­cat­ed on the top­ic than you are.

As a piece, I read on medi­um.com states, “As hu­mans, we all have our lit­tle hang-ups and, some­times, that can tinge our view of the peo­ple and sit­u­a­tions around us. When life gets tough, it can be­come easy to project our un­hap­pi­ness on the peo­ple around us. Some peo­ple give ad­vice be­cause they need emo­tion­al val­i­da­tion or they have is­sues self-reg­u­lat­ing their feel­ings. Oth­ers might give ad­vice in or­der to feel like they have some sort of con­trol on the peo­ple around them.” I couldn’t agree more.

Some quick steps to han­dling the un­want­ed ad­vice - Shut it down ear­ly; Don’t take it per­son­al­ly; Move along and al­ways try to ex­am­ine the source prop­er­ly be­fore de­cid­ing your next step. Last­ly, do your best to ap­pear in­ter­est­ed and slip in a smile some­where in be­tween. And sure, we can all make space for your ad­vice, just make sure it's qual­i­fied and worth the time.

Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Me­dia. He is a for­mer FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa and 2013 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in Turkey The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com