Eni Aluko denies criticising Ian Wright for media work in girls’s soccer | Ladies’s soccer

Eni Aluko has denied she “attacked” Ian Wright along with her feedback over his involvement as a pundit in girls’s soccer.

Talking to BBC Radio 4’s Girl’s Hour this week, the previous England ahead mentioned the danger of males blocking alternatives for feminine broadcasters in girls’s soccer. When requested by the presenter Clare McDonnell whether or not Wright was an instance of somebody taking over area that could possibly be occupied by a girl, Aluko stated: “I’ve labored with Ian a very long time and, you understand, I believe he’s an excellent broadcaster. However I believe he’s conscious of simply how a lot he’s doing within the girls’s sport. I believe he ought to concentrate on that.”

Aluko added: “I believe we have to be aware and we have to ensure that girls will not be being blocked from having a pathway in broadcasting within the girls’s sport. It’s nonetheless new, it’s nonetheless rising. There’s a finite quantity of alternatives and I believe that males want to pay attention to that. Males have to be conscious that you simply’re in a rising sport for ladies and we haven’t all the time had these alternatives. It’s in regards to the consciousness and supporting different girls by way of that pathway.”

After media scrutiny over her feedback, Aluko posted on Instagram with a hyperlink to her BBC interview to spotlight the “full context” of her feedback.

“I’m sharing this full episode right here once more so folks can really take heed to every thing I stated with full context,” Aluko wrote. “Opposite to clickbait media headlines nobody was ‘attacked’ or ‘accused’ throughout this interview. There are many examples of males in girls’s sport. Ian Wright is one. And as I stated within the interview – Ian Wright is good.”

Wright was a part of the BBC’s protection of Euro 2022 when he implored, after England’s semi-final victory over Sweden, for women to have the identical entry to soccer in colleges as boys. His advocacy for the ladies’s sport has stretched to paying for the anterior cruciate ligament rehabilitation of Kayleigh McDonald, who sustained the harm whereas taking part in for Stoke Metropolis final 12 months.

“I wouldn’t be in an incredible place mentally if it wasn’t for Ian Wright,” McDonald advised the Telegraph. “For him to do that for me, somebody he didn’t know, I believe there needs to be extra of a highlight shone on him.”

Aluko received 105 England caps and made historical past in 2014 as the primary lady to look as a pundit on Match of the Day. She has labored for TNT and Amazon Prime amongst others.