Male pundits risk blocking opportunities for women - Aluko

Match of the day is replacing action for punditry where it can. I reckon you'll be making more cups of tea and coffee.

 

Fair enough comments. She's just thinking out loud and raising issues for discussion.

 

No, it's just degraded by the football

 

I’d say all of them are far better than Aluko.

But more importantly they’re generally on to cover the teams they played for. Owen & McManaman get a lot of Liverpool games & Real Madrid in the champions league.

Keown does mainly Arsenal & Sherwood does plenty of Tottenham games.

I think Townsend is mainly a co-commentator isn’t he? I don’t mind him to be honest.

Savage isn’t my cup of tea as a pundit but I think he’s a decent from an entertainment point of view. He’s a good presenter on 606.

 

Yeah.. her point is not proven it's not an absolute.. it's just an opinion.. As is yours as is mine. It doesn't make you right or wrong if you agree with it or not.

 

Where I’ve always argued it’s wrong is it’s never been about who’s the best at the job. It’s always been a case of celebrity. Sky, TNT, BBC or whoever’s hosting it want the biggest names possible.

Let’s be honest we all want Roy Keane in the studio when Man Utd get turned over by a bottom half side.

However a player who’s had a very good career in the football league but not made it in the premier league for example Jobi McAnuff who I think is very good at his job will never get regular work covering the premier league yet women footballers who’ve played a far lower standard of football than McAnuff in front of (for the most part) far smaller crowds will walk into regular punditry gigs covering the premier league. I personally think that’s unfair.

It seems like now we’re in a situation where it’s big names & a female to tick a box. I’m not saying all female pundits are poor. I like Karen Carney & Jill Scott for example but I see Aluko & Izzy Christensen & I don’t think they’re there for any other reason than the broadcaster ticking a box because they aren’t big names, they aren’t particularly entertaining & they don’t tell me much of interest. I don’t really see what they bring to the broadcast.

 

I don't care who presents or talks about football. I tend to record and fast forward the MOTD pundit bits - usually its just Keown or Richards literally just describing a passage of play - "and then he passed it out wide", "and then he ran onto the through ball" - I mean its hardly illuminating. Any live games I start watching 5 minutes before kick off or record and again fast forward the chitchat nonsense. As for womens football, I just can't get into it, the level is woeful, I have nothing against womens football its just not for me. I'm not sure picking on Ian Wright a working class lad who had a rough'ish upbringing by someone who went to private school resonates. She should check her own privilege's.

 

Call me whatever you like but I really struggle with female commentators. I don’t know what it is but I just can’t get into the game.

 

Exactly, how on earth Izzy Christenson gets picked before former top level male pundits is totally unfair, no way can she give more knowledgeable opinion than players who have played at high men’s level. Men and women’s are different games both physically and speed wise. An easy solution is to have women using their expertise being pundits for women’s games and men for men’s games.

 

I don't think someone's quality as a pundit is determined by the level at which they've played.

 

I understand the concept of an opinion, mate. Django has further clarified his and to a degree, I agree.

I do often think though, if I said the sky is blue, you'd argue it was cerulean fusion

 

Me too, but mine is from a practical viewpoint. When a male commentator raises his voice as a team scores I can hear it ok. When a female raises her already high noted voice it sounds like a shriek and I really can't tell a word she's saying. I wear high gain hearing aids and this is one of the issues with them. Excited gabbled falsetto is an unintelligible scream in many cases. I watch the games without commentary, just like at Oakwell.
Except for that bloke behind me.
And those either side

 

There is no correlation between a person's ability to play a sport and a person's ability to talk about that sport.

 

I do find it weird that female commentators/pundits are held to a higher standard of excellence while I've watched Paul Merson struggle to speak anything approaching basic English for the last 20 years.

I agree with Archey's point that these positions should be held by journalists. Michael Dawson's opinion on Lionel Messi doesn't have more gravitas because he once put in in the mixer away at Loftus Road

 

Personally I would sooner listen to someone who’s been there and done it so to speak, I have more respect for their opinions than someone who hasn’t. Now if we are talking about football presenters then I believe we have better female than male in that department

 

Thats only your opinion though

 

No it isn't. It's a fact. Being good at something doesn't automatically make you good at talking about it.

 

Makes you wonder why Sky employ ex golfers to comment on golf instead of electrians then
Also why they employ ex cricketers to speak about cricket instead of plumbers then
Basically they do the above because the ex players are more likely to know what they are talking about Jay old friend

 

Steve Bruce played many levels above Jose Mourinho.

 

I take your point, but there are plenty on here who say that just because you’ve been a player doesn’t mean you know how to be a coach, and surely the same rule applies. Some footballers are also good at talking about it, some non-footballers are also good at talking about it.
As someone else said, the reason a lot of players get a gig is they are either controversial or they are an ex player for the team that is playing.