The former England international has defended her stance on male pundits in women’s football after Laura Woods criticised her comments as “dragging women’s punditry backwards”
Eni Aluko has levelled accusations of gaslighting at Laura Woods, following the ITV and TNT Sports presenter’s suggestion that her recent comments are “dragging women’s punditry backwards”.
The ex-England player found herself back in the spotlight this weekend after she reiterated her belief that women’s football needs to be “gatekept”, arguing that male pundits, including former Arsenal forward Ian Wright, are restricting opportunities for women in the sport.
Aluko, who scored 33 goals in 105 appearances for England, initially sparked controversy last April when she criticised Wright, suggesting he should reflect on “how much he’s doing in the women’s game”. She implied that Wright’s involvement was making it difficult for female pundits trying to carve out a niche in the industry.
She later apologised, but Wright refused to accept her apology, expressing his “disappointment” at her remarks.
After Aluko restated her stance on male pundits, Woods took to Twitter on Monday morning to criticise her ITV colleague through several posts. Woods cautioned that Aluko’s statements could “not only drag women’s sport backwards, it will drag women’s punditry in all forms of the game backwards”, reports the Irish Mirror.
Aluko responded to Woods’ recent comments, admitting she felt “gaslit”. Speaking on Tuesday morning’s talkSPORT broadcast, Aluko said: “I respect Laura’s opinion and always have done. I think it’s helpful for her to outline the attributes that go into what you consider a brilliant pundit.
“[Number of] Caps is obviously part of that, as I explained. Caps isn’t the decider but it’s an objective way to say that a person has enough experience to talk about this specific game.”
She continued: “It’s interesting because Laura was one of the people I would consistently go to. We got on like a house on fire and I would go and ask her how she thought things went.
“Laura, consistently… and I had to look at the messages yesterday and thought ‘hold on, I feel a bit gaslit here’… Laura consistently said to me ‘I think you’re a brilliant broadcaster and pundit’.
“So I think there’s a little bit of serving her argument at this point. Which I respect, she doesn’t agree and that’s fine. But I think there’s an insinuation in there that you don’t meet the standard. I’ve worked too hard for people just to conclude that because you’re not seeing me on screen, you’re not good enough. That’s not true.”
When talkSPORT host Jim White pointed out the “gaslit” comment, Aluko quickly clarified her stance, replying: “Not gaslit, I don’t want to say that because she has a view and I appreciate her view.
“She mentioned about little boys being important for the women’s game now and I agree.
“When I see little boys coming to women’s games now, they have the women on the back of their shirts, they don’t have the names of male pundits.”