Have all men lost there backbone.?

[Fishingmick]

Hi could someone please help me and tell me why has SOMEONE given woman the commentators JOBS ON MENS FOOTBALL.now please let me explain my self.  I'm 100% not a sexist. I love woman but I watch them now and then but I just don't get it my 1st thought of the woman game was it was **bleep**. But so many people on TV talking about them saying how good they are. So I thought I would give it another look and yes it wasn't the best football I had seen but it was a bit better. I would say there standards are around the NATIONAL LEAGUE BUT I STILL COULDN'T  SEE THEM WINNING A GAME. IF THEY COULD PLAY JUST ONE SEASON. I'm sorry to say this because I love watching football. So back to my point why have the top people TV sports shoved loads woman in to jobs that they are way way below the standard to talk about Premier players.i mean would they put a player from league Two or isthmian league to come on and talk about Premier players.????   The answer is NO.. But why not .they are better players then the women you have put in to do it. Plus the players in them lower teams could sure do with the money.

[gomezz]

Really? Don't you want the best people who can talk about the game doing that job? There have been several top class players across all sports who have tried and and failed to transfer to the TV and radio. And several more who seem to keep getting given a gig despite their inadequacies.

We are still waiting for the new Richie Benaud to turn up.

[TimCurtis]

@Fishingmick 

In my view it should always be the best person for the job regardless of sex,colour etc in all walks of life.

Once you start setting quotas then things go wrong in that you get inferior people doing the job.

We're getting a few females as refs/assistant refs who seem to be quite capable so why not I say.

Likewise presenters like Gabby Logan whose dad was an international football star and lived & breathed football whilst growing up. Not many better than her.

[Andy005]

For the most part, it's personal opinion as to how good a presenter/commentator/pundit is. I don't think that the standard of some women's sports has any bearing on their ability to present/commentate etc on sport.  Personally speaking, it's their knowledge, tone of voice, personality etc that's important to me. There are some women that commentate on Cricket and I find them better than some of the men.

Then there's the business/PR decision where in the case of the media for example, they want to be seen to NOT be     '???ist' to anyone in case someone might be offended. So it has become more of a box ticking exercise.

If were solely based on talent, would Steve Jones and Billy Monger present F1 for Channel 4?  I'm baffled as to how anyone at the BBC can let Danny Dyer present a prime time show. These examples are just my opinion and where I think the box tickers have been at work, but maybe a lot of other people may disagree with me. Or it may be that I'm just getting old and standards and views are changing. 

[TimCurtis]

@Andy005 

It may well be an age thing as I'm old & totally agree with you , especially about DD.

[TimCurtis]

I'll add that everyone is entitled to their opinion & to be able to express it, like Piers Morgan about Megan not being totally truthful in her interview. Whether I agree or not with him (I do btw) it's absolutely wrong that he gets hounded for it.

[Andy005]

I was going to say something very similar @TimCurtis  but I decided against it because it seems that you can't say anything these days without being accused by the masses, who actually never read or listen properly to what has actually been said.

[gomezz]

I have to disagree about Billy Monger. May he have a long racing career still ahead of him but he has more than demonstrated he has the face, voice and expertise to move beyond being a pundit to main presenter in later years.

Steve Jones I will give you as being intensely irritating especially when in a double act with Eddie Jordan.

[iniltous]

Must admit , I wasn’t sure what sort of reply’s the OP was going to get asking what could be quite a controversial question,  there is a funny Harry Enfield , and Paul Whitehouse sketch , where they , as football players or managers , are being interviewed after a game by a woman pundit, they look puzzled, and ask ‘where is the bloke interviewer’ and then request the pundit goes and does what women in football should be there for, ‘2 sugars in my tea love’,
IMHO, no doubt  there is positive discrimination, when hiring pundits etc, towards some sort of gender equivalence, but in the 21st century, perhaps the previous regime of 100% male , with a token representation of non white men was probably unsustainable, and looks a little old fashioned to me looking back at it, but probably better to have evolution rather than revolution.
TBH, having a great ex player ( male or female ) doesn’t necessarily make a great pundit, and there is no real point comparing the relative merit of being at the top of the female game and suggesting it would only really be equal to a fairly low level of the men’s game, if it were possible to compare the two....and TBH, it probably would only lead to further arguments about gender and if male and female are the correct terms to use, probably fair to say, all sport TV company’s are doing the same ,and it’s not something that’s likely to go back to how it was, it doesn’t really matter if you ( or I )   think that’s good or bad 

[Brucemeister5]

Football is a game of opinions, always has been, always will be. What makes a good pundit is very much down to personal taste. The idea that in order to be a top pundit,  you need to have played and won things at the highest level of the game is false in my opinion. If you look back at the most successful coaches in recent times - Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho, Klopp, none of those achieved anything of note as players did they? Pep is the obvious exception.

Some of those that appear regularly on our tv screens are stealing a living in my opinion. It is their ability to communicate with the audience as broadcasters that determines how good they will be as pundits. Some of the better ones didn’t achieve much as players. Danny Higginbotham who used to work for Sky was very good I thought. Lucy Ward(who did the co-comms last night) and Rachel Finnis-Brown are both excellent, and I’m more than happy for BT Sport to give them more opportunities in men’s football. Indeed, BT Sport seem to have had a perennial problem with co-commentators.