Eni Aluko believes Ian Wright and other male pundits risk ‘blocking’ female broadcasters in women’s football.
Former Arsenal and England striker Wright has been a serious advocate ofwomen’s football and has covered the Lionesses as a pundit for ITV for several years.
But Aluko, who won three Women’s Super League titles during her playing profession with Chelsea and scored 33 goals in 105 appearances for England, says Wright is ‘dominating’ the ladies’s game and claims there may be a ‘limited amount of opportunities for ladies’ within the broadcasting side of the game.
The 38-year-old, who made history when she became the primary woman to look on BBC Match of the Day as a pundit in 2014, also says she is worried about seeing ‘a repeat dominance of men in the ladies’s game’.
In an interview with BBC’s Woman’s Hour, Aluko said: ‘I’m blissful that the ladies’s game has grown, it’s seeing exponential growth in all areas, on the pitch, off the pitch, broadcasting.
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‘But I still feel like there may be a double standard where there continues to be a limited amount of opportunities for ladies, female broadcasters, each in the lads’s and the ladies’s game.
‘We’re still competing for 2 or three seats maximum, which incorporates the presenters.
‘Whereas I feel men, there are a whole lot of men who’ve much broader opportunities who at the moment are coming into the ladies’s game.
‘For instance, in the event you have a look at the WSL by way of coaches, I feel there are six or seven head coaches, there continues to be not one single female head coach in the lads’s game.
‘So whilst the ladies’s game is growing, now we have to be very careful that it’s still an area for ladies to develop their careers as broadcasters, as coaches.
‘What we don’t want is a repeat dominance of men in the ladies’s game, as broadcasters, as coaches, earning more cash than women when we are able to’t do the identical in the lads’s game.
‘I’d never, ever give you the chance to usurp Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher, these are guys who’ve done it for a very long time, they’re sensible broadcasters, they rightly dominate their sport. I feel the identical should apply in the ladies’s game.’
When asked if she is talking about Wright as someone who could possibly be viewed as a high-profile male pundit taking over space in the ladies’s game, Aluko replied: ‘I’ve worked with Ian a protracted time and, you already know, I feel he’s a superb broadcaster but I feel he’s aware of just how much he’s doing in the ladies’s game. I feel he should concentrate on that.
‘The actual fact of the matter is, as I said, there may be a limited amount of spaces available. If we had a situation where there was an equal opportunity in the lads’s game for broadcasters and coaches that there may be in the ladies’s game, it’s a free for all.
‘But that’s not the case. I can’t dominate the lads’s game in the way in which that, you already know, you used Ian for instance, Ian is dominating the ladies’s game.’
Aluko, who finished her playing profession five years ago, has worked as a pundit alongside Wright on multiple occasions for ITV for England’s matches.
Asked whether it is improper that Wright works as a pundit in the ladies’s game, Aluko said: ‘I don’t find out about improper but I feel we must be conscious and we’d like to make sure that that girls aren’t being blocked from having a pathway in broadcasting in the ladies’s game.
‘It’s still recent, it’s still growing. There’s a finite amount of opportunities and I feel that men need to pay attention to that.
‘Men must be aware that, you already know, you’re in a growing sport, a growing sport for ladies, and we haven’t all the time had these opportunities, and so it’s in regards to the awareness and supporting other women through that pathway.’
When presenter Clare McDonnell suggested that there may be an argument that a ‘household name’ reminiscent of Wright brings his own audience to women’s football, Aluko replied: ‘It’s thing, no, it absolutely is thing.
‘But I’d say that there are female broadcasters who’re household names too. And now we have done quite a bit in the game. I just don’t need to see women being blocked in women’s sport.’
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