ITV beat the BBC, but all TV coverage of women's football needs to grow up

Telegraph

28-07-2025

It was, you have to say, excellent TV, skilful and provocative, and it hit Carney right in the feels. Karen told us she was welling up and 'I am not going to lie, I found it quite triggering. There is now a little girl and little boy that now knows it is OK to want to be a footballer.' Pace yourself, Karen, there's still half an hour until kick-off. Wright and Hayes also did appropriate amounts of Her Game Too-ing and fair enough. Over on the BBC, a pop singer called Self-Esteem did a song called Focus is Power and it doesn't get more earnest than that.
Maybe because the game itself is younger at this level of mainstream interest, or because some of these Lionesses were able to play very long careers, but it feels like the pundits are generally a lot closer both in age and personally to the women they are commenting on. For instance on the BBC: White, only 36 and a team-mate of many of these, whereas a men's game will have Alan Shearer or whoever, guys who belong to a different generation who can, sometimes, put the boot in where needed. This is partly why the coverage of England women players and manager is largely uncritical.
For example, it was put to ITV's Anita Asante before the match that maybe Lauren James wasn't fit. Firmly, Asante said: 'If Lauren James is in the starting line-up she is 100 per cent.' That did not really seem to be the case, though, and it symptomatic of a general reluctance to criticise that the men's game has largely moved beyond.
Hard to see Gabby Logan saying that the England women's team had played s---, isn't it, as Gary Lineker did about Harry Kane and co? Not that yesterday called for anything beyond cheerleading. Women's football is, as yet, still part elite sport and part feelgood story and social project and the coverage reflects that but it will be really interesting to see if there's room for a Roy Keane or Alan Hansen type in a few years as the TV coverage matures.