It’s an interesting discussion point between reasonable football fans, because naturally supporters won’t always agree with pundits and commentators. Especially ones that wear their own tinted glasses of bias towards their former teams, much like Gary Neville and Sky counterpart Jamie Carragher.
But ultimately competence should always be more important than gender. Knowledgeable and engaging pundits are more interesting to listen to. And there are plenty of male pundits who are frankly awful.
Last year Gary Neville and Jill Scott did a swap of their social media accounts and commented as each other. The results, were sadly as you’d expect, with plenty of disparaging comments aimed at Neville thinking it was the female Scott.
There are plenty of vocal misogynist arguments though, led recently by Joey Barton (of Manchester City fame), who seem to get irate by the improved diversity on football coverage. In a recent rant of his common sense podcast, he made some fair points, like how shirt sponsors get double exposure in the women’s game, but was a bit wild in his accusations that women in the half time studio was intended to drive more ads, and eventually the super league.
Eniola Aluko presenting at the world cup in 2022 made a gaff that didn’t help the cause, she spoke of Richarlison and said “He’s the top scorer for Brazil over the last two years. He’s got a great record, 19 goals in 40 appearances, you do the math on that – that’s one goal a game, pretty much.”
Well sadly, people could do the maths to know it was a goal in every 2 games. In fairness, perhaps she got mixed up and meant goals and assists were averaging one per game. But either way, she’s not the first. Michael Owen is well known for his laughable comments, such as gems “whichever team scores more goals usually wins” and “when they don’t score, they hardly ever win”.
For a while it seemed you had to have a famous dad to become a female sports presenter (Gabby Logan MBE, daughter of Terry Yorath, and Kirsty Gallacher, daughter of golfer Bernard Gallacher). Both made their names on Sky in the late 90’s, with Georgie Thompson and Charlotte Jackson to follow.
There is something else they have in common, and that’s Gallacher, Thompson and Jackson all appeared in FHM’s 100 sexiest women. It’s clear that that panel were not interested in their knowledge on sports, proving with phrases like “thinking man’s crumpet” that even intelligent women were still objects first and foremost.
It seems Logan did not, instead an old interview was dragged up to publicly lambast Sky Sports in 2013 for rightly using female presenters as window dressing (although those weren’t her actual words). But then neither was Helen Chamberlain, the feisty and funny Soccer AM presenter, who was unfairly coined a Ladette rather than be appreciated as a lady who liked football and was super knowledgeable on the subject.
But there is no doubt that the eye-candy reading from a teleprompter was clearly more preferable for viewers who tuned in to objectivity, than the “women talking shite” attitude of Barton and his followers. And he is not alone, with Jason Cundy claiming Vicki Sparks voice was too high pitched for TV in 2018.
Despite inroads made by Logan and Gallacher, it wasn’t until 2007 that the first female football commentator got on television, with the marvellous Jacqui Oatley MBE.
Now we have Reshmin Chowdhury, Alex Scott, Laura Woods, Seema Jaswal, and Michelle Owen, Karen Carney, Robyn Cowen, Pien Meulensteen, and Kelly Somers all leading the way on BBC and ITV. And much like many young women inspired by the heroics of the Lionesses, are great role models for future generations of broadcast and sports journalists.
I do find it funny how some sports are deemed acceptable for female presenters. I can’t imagine Wimbledon or Question of Sport without Sue Barker. Even rugby, which is deemed a more masculine sport than football, has female figures such as Sarra Elgan.
You are probably wondering why I care. Well like Gary Neville, I also have a young sporty daughter, who regularly beats the boys at running. I also overhear what the lads say about her. She deserves better, all young girls do. They should be respected for their sporting abilities, not their legs. The only challenges girls in sports should face is on the pitch, not in the stands.
