Joey Barton suggests women football pundits hired to ‘tick boxes’

The Independent

Joey Barton suggests women football pundits hired to 'tick boxes'Piers Morgan Uncensored, TalkTV

Transcript

00:00 What is it about the women that you think is inappropriate?

00:04 Is it because they have not played the game

00:07 at the highest level of men's football?

00:09 - No, Piers, as you know,

00:12 I'll never not answer the question.

00:14 No, it's absolutely not that.

00:16 It's about, as I say, you have to be there on merit.

00:20 Like, you can't be there to fit this woke agenda

00:24 that we've currently got going on in society.

00:28 You don't have to have played the game.

00:30 Lots of managers haven't played the game at a high level.

00:33 Lots of good commentary people haven't played the game

00:35 at a high level.

00:36 Kind of Mark Chapman, Rory Smiths of this world.

00:40 But they've earned the right via hard work

00:44 over a prolonged period to get into that space.

00:47 Obviously, it helps to talk about the men's game.

00:50 If you've played that men's game,

00:52 the higher the level, arguably the better,

00:54 because it gives you the unique experience.

00:56 There's a lot of similarities between both sports, Piers.

00:58 Absolutely no danger in that.

01:00 But the men's game is just played

01:02 at a completely different speed,

01:03 with a completely different skill set needed.

01:07 And for someone to stand there and say,

01:09 "I would have done this in this situation,"

01:10 or, "He's made a mistake there,"

01:12 who have no experience of that.

01:15 And it's not just one or two.

01:17 It's been taken over.

01:19 And it ruins the experience for most men.

01:22 And it's the men's game.

01:23 And I feel, I don't want to come across as sexist,

01:25 but I'm absolutely not.

01:26 I've got a wonderful daughter, wonderful wife,

01:28 my grandmother, a big matriarch.

01:30 I want women at men's games.

01:31 You know, at Bristol Rovers, we had hair game too,

01:34 and it was a great initiative to get women in the stadiums.

01:37 But if we're going to talk about the technical nuances

01:40 of elite level football,

01:41 and we want to educate the audience,

01:43 which is the punditry, co-commentary role,

01:46 then we must do that with the most credible people,

01:49 not people who tick boxes or fill quotas.

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