Kenny Hassan
Kenny Hassan (born 22 June 1966 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish radio personality who formerly hosted the World Football Daily radio show and podcast. Hassan, a native of Glasgow, has lived in Los Angeles, California since 1994 and supports Rangers. He is a self-admitted Arsenal "admirer" due to their fiscal responsibility in the modern era of football that as he commented is 'eating itself' he was also known for his in-depth coverage of Italy's Serie A whilst being supportive and respectful of the history and achievements of A.C. Milan.
Kenny Hassan | |
|---|---|
 Kenny Hassan on World Football Daily | |
| Born | 22 June 1966 |
| Career | |
| Show | Freelance Soccer Analyst |
| Style | Sports radio |
| Country |  |
Hassan is also known for covering many different topics in football such as racism, hooliganism, safe standing, finances and acceptance of the gay community in the sport.
Biography
Hassan lived for several years in Kaiserslautern, Germany. On his radio show, Hassan was known for making up his own names for certain players during his almost 6yrs and close to 2,000 live broadcasts. For example, he referred to now-retired Rangers defender Carlos Bocanegra as Carlos "Boca Juniors"; Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker as "Mertz-cracker"; FC Barcelona midfielder Sergi Busquets as "Biscuits"; either then-Liverpool's Dirk Kuyt or now-retired Manchester United's Ji-sung Park as "Ji-Sung Kuyt"; and either Tottenham Hotspur's Aaron Lennon or Queens Park Rangers' Shaun Wright-Phillips as "Shaun Wright-Lennon."
Career
Hassan initially started as a guest co-host on Sirius Satellite Radio's World Soccer Daily after being recognised as a call-in fan that often went head to head with the then hosts on their analysis and viewpoints resulting on him being asked if he would sit in and co-host. He would often pair up with Steven Cohen, Nick Geber or Howard Rogers. He eventually replaced Howard Rogers in September 2006 after Rogers was let go from the show. Kenny then became the Monday through Friday co-host of World Soccer Daily when he and Steven Cohen were famously known for taking the show in a different direction that included higher profile guests, sponsors and broadening the EPL dominated show to covering almost every Lge possible, this led to the audience growing substantially and the pair being rewarded by major sponsors like Heineken promoting them traveling the country and doing live-remote broadcasts during European Champions League matches from locations in Boston, NY, Denver and Philadelphia. Kenny was with the show until its final broadcast in September 2009 at a time when the well publicised outrage over Cohens ongoing comments regarding Liverpool fans and what he considered should have been a shared responsibility in stadium disasters. Having lost the vast majority of the sizeable revenue the show was generating Kenny then, as he says, invented and co-founded the all new World Football Daily with Steven Cohen under a paid-subscriber based model bringing back the audience numbers and revenue without relying on major sponsorship, an idea and arena which had never been done before on any platform by any network or publication. Hassan then went on to become the lone host after Cohen had left the show in April 2011.The reasons behind Cohen leaving were wildly exaggerated again by bloggers and forums online but what was going on behind the scenes was an opportunity for them both to be the flagship podcast of the forthcoming ESPNFC and it is alleged that deals were signed and pre-production was about to start soon after before Cohen again tormented Liverpool fans about a comeback on social media. The pushback and threat of boycott on anything to do with ESPN from LFC that the network hierarchy received was en masse and 3 days before the new era would have begun, they got cancelled.
On Monday, September 26, 2011 Hassan signed off for the last time as the host of World Football Daily. In leaving World Football Daily, Hassan left a fine legacy of promoting the "beautiful game" in the United States. In his five and a half years as host/co-host of World Soccer/Football Daily he proved to be an expert in promoting the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, Spanish Primera and French Ligue 1 in the United States. Hassan made himself known for not only his informative tactical analysis on every league, team and players and his great on-air chemistry with his partner but also entertaining debate with the games highest profile players, coaches, referee's and journalist's with lively interviews every day for 2 hours on everything current about the game from around the world. The sudden departure of Hassan from his own show led to much speculation based on comments he had previously made regarding the formula of the show which he apparently did not agree with after long-time friend/partner Steven Cohen had left, which we now know was to join the ESPN family. World Football Daily found an investor and made various attempts to introduce new hosts but numbers dwindled rapidly forcing the end of the broadcast.