Female world cup pundits are a step forward for diversity, but not for the quality of coverage Eni Aluko is a titan of women’s football. She’s played more than 100 times for England, and in a 17-year […]

Eni Aluko is a titan of women’s football. She’s played more than 100 times for England, and in a 17-year senior career which has taken in spells at Birmingham City, Charlton Athletic, Chelsea, and, now, Juventus, she has won every honour the game has to offer. She also has a first-class degree in law, and is a polished, articulate, engaging person.

All these qualities justify Aluko’s presence as a pundit, offering her commentary on ITV’s World Cup shows. She provides a refreshingly different tone to the coverage, even though the idea that women can present football shows, do interviews or even, in some cases, commentate on matches is not a new one. Over at the BBC, Alex Scott, who had 140 caps for England’s women’s team as a right back, sits in between Phil Neville and Didier Drogba to offer her insights.

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This is the first time, as far as I can recall, that women have been regulars in this televisual equivalent of a workingmens’ club, and we can feel pleased that we live in enlightened times. My only question – and I pose it nervously – is this: why did our major TV channels feel the need to have a female presence on their World Cup panels?

It is only right that television discussion panel should reflect the diversity of the subject matter. It would look completely wrong if there was an all-male line-up on, for instance, Question Time, leaving half the population unrepresented. Or if the expert analysis on the Olympic Games, a unisex event, was provided only men. That would, quite correctly, never happen.

Why the change?

The fact is that the World Cup is competed for, exclusively, by men. There is an enormous amount of diversity in this competition in terms of race, colour and ethnicity, but not of gender. This is not to say that only men have a right to comment on professional football, but my intuition is that the TV bosses sought to have women on the panel for reasons of appearance rather than to satisfy a latent demand to hear their opinions. And isn’t that tokenism in and of itself?

Eni Aluko and Alex Scott have shown themselves to be knowledgable and enthusiastic, and Aluko has survived being patronised by former France international Patrice Evra. He has been rightly condemned for applauding her analysis (even though it has been conveniently overlooked that Evra’s action was in response to the female presenter of the show, Jacqui Oatley, saying: “She’s good, isn’t she?”).

I would only question the insight they offer. Women’s football is a very different game from that played at the World Cup, much less intense and physical, with very different tactical exigencies. I’m not saying that women’s football isn’t entertaining or relevant, but it’s like getting a netball player to discuss major league basketball. Some people may find it equally odd when men are commentators in women’s football matches.

Both BBC and ITV are lucky that the modern professional footballer, in the main, has a certain degree of media training, and the technical analysis offered by the likes of Alan Shearer, Gary Neville and Rio Ferdinand sets a very high bar for newbies such as Eluko and Scott. Their offerings may seem bland by comparison, but compared with Glenn Hoddle, they are incisive and intelligent. And he managed the England team once.