Former England manager Kevin Keegan says he has a “problem” with female footballers being employed as pundits for England men’s games.
Keegan is a former England footballer who scored 21 goals in 63 appearances and also managed the national side for a period of just over a year and a half in 1999 and 2000.
The former sportsman is currently on a speaking tour across the country, and in an appearance in Bristol during “An Evening With Kevin Keegan OBE”, he made the controversial comments.
On female footballers doing punditry for men’s games, Keegan said: “I’m not as keen, I’ve got to be honest, and it may not be a view shared. I don’t like to listen to ladies talking about the England men’s team at the match because I don’t think it’s the same experience. I have a problem with that.”
He continued: “The presenters we have now, some of the girls are so good, they are better than the guys. It’s a great time for the ladies. But if I see an England lady footballer saying about England against Scotland at Wembley and she’s saying, ‘If I would have been in that position I would have done this,’ I don’t think it’s quite the same. I don’t think it crosses over that much.”
In recent years, former England Lionesses players Jill Scott, Alex Scott and Karen Carney have had a greater presence in football punditry across the women’s and men’s games. Recently, Jill Scott swapped social media platforms with fellow pundit Gary Neville, where the level of sexist abuse levelled against her was laid bare.
Later in his talk, Keegan explained that he had experience with the women’s game and spoke about where women’s football is at right now.
“It is a great time for the ladies’ game,” Keegan said. “When I was England manager I went to coach the England ladies and I had this perception of what the quality would be like and they were so much better than I thought they were going to be.
“I joined in and then I thought, ‘I’m getting out of this.’ I couldn’t get the bloody ball and one of them nutmegged me, that finished me off.”
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