Laura Woods has leapt to Ian Wright’s defence after Eni Aluko criticised ITV’s use of male pundits for ladies’s soccer protection.
Eni Aluko made the feedback on a podcast final week (Picture: 90s Child Present)
Arsenal legend Ian Wright has discovered himself embroiled in one other dispute with TV pundit Eni Aluko. ITV presenter Laura Woods has swiftly defended Wright following feedback from former England worldwide Aluko, who argued that girls’s soccer protection ought to give precedence to feminine pundits.
Wright is a extensively revered TV presenter and analyst who has been a vocal advocate for the ladies’s sport throughout all tiers. Beforehand, Aluko has insinuated that Wright has latched onto girls’s soccer to forge a contemporary profession path. Nonetheless, a sharp-eyed Crystal Palace supporter has unearthed exceptional footage from earlier than the 1990 FA Cup remaining, displaying Wright and his Palace colleagues throughout their customary pre-match walkabout in fits at Wembley forward of their conflict with Manchester United.
The clip – at roughly 3 minutes and 30 seconds – clearly captures gamers from the England Girls’s staff, who had thrashed Scotland 4-0 at Wembley that very same day, standing pitchside calling out to Wright. He evidently recognises them, walks over to greet them warmly, demonstrating his longstanding involvement and enthusiasm for the ladies’s sport.
The Palace supporter commented: “That claims every thing about Ian and dispels any fable about it – you may see the heat, respect and admiration. He’s the participant they know, they respect and it exhibits, as soon as and for all, that Wrighty has taken an actual curiosity within the girls’s sport for a lot of, a few years. And this proves it.”
This is not the primary event Aluko has criticised protection of the ladies’s sport, having beforehand apologised to Wright, who refused to just accept it. On this event, Aluko took challenge with ITV’s choice of pundits for final yr’s girls’s remaining. Talking on the 90s Child Present podcast, Aluko mentioned: “Final yr on the Girls’s Lionesses remaining, I am sat within the stands, I wasn’t on it for ITV for the ultimate. Farah Williams was subsequent to me. Farah Williams has 170 caps for England.
“The 2 broadcasters that had the rights, ITV, BBC. On BBC, you have received Ellen White, Steph Houghton and Nedum Onuoha. No offence to Nedum Onouha, nothing in opposition to him, I do not know whether or not he performed for England or not. You are on the principle panel for the ultimate for England Girls.
Woods continued: “If you wish to develop one thing, you do not gatekeep it. We need to encourage little boys and males to look at girls’s soccer too, not simply little women and girls. And once they see somebody like Ian Wright taking it as critically as he does – they observe go well with. That is the way you develop a sport.
“Here is an image of our staff at ITV. We received greatest manufacturing on the Broadcast Sport Awards 2025 for our protection of the ladies’s Euros. Seb Hutchinson received greatest commentator too. So I feel ITV received it excellent.”
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