Female voices from WC spark sexist backlash

BERLIN: Female sports journalists have made history with live commentaries on games broadcast from the World Cup — only to be vilified in torrents of sexist insults and ridicule on social media.

While women presenters and experts have slowly gained a foothold in the TV studios of sports broadcasters, live commentary of football’s showpiece tournament had until now been very much a man’s game.Some fans desperately want to keep it that way and have vented their anger on Twitter and other social media.

“Call me old-fashioned, but women commentators, no thank you,” wrote one after the BBC’s Vicki Sparks and a male colleague commentated on a live match for Britain’s public broadcaster. “BBC again trying to do the PC thing,” the user scoffed.

Others charged that “women commentators just don’t work”, make fans “cringe”, help stations to “tick boxes” in gender equality, and that their “squeaky voices” ruin the experience.Former England captain John Terry posted on Instagram a photo of his TV set during the Morocco vs Portugal match in question with the caption “having to watch this game with no volume”. After many angry replies, he deleted the post and clarified that, after he had returned late at night from holidays in the Maldives, the audio on his set was not working.

Similar sentiments have rained down on female TV pioneers such as Claudia Neumann of Germany’s ZDF, Aly Wagner of Fox in the US, Hanna Marklund of Sweden’s TV4 and Norwegian NRK’s Lise Klaveness.

In Germany, ZDF sports chief Thomas Fuhrmann jumped to the defence of Neumann after she repeatedly became the target of fierce ridicule and gender-based attacks. “Of course we accept criticism, including of our commentators, but what is happening with Claudia Neumann is breaking all boundaries,” he said. “This is obviously about something fundamental — a woman commentating on a game at the men’s World Cup. Some people are completely losing it online, it’s beyond the pale.” Support for Neumann — who had previously taken the microphone for Euro 2016 and Champions League matches — also came from the German Olympic and Sports Confederation. The body proposed putting more women into “supposedly male disciplines” with an emphasis on high-profile events such as at the World Cup and Champions League matches.

Bibiana Steinhaus — who became the first woman to referee Bundesliga men’s matches this year, and suffered a similar backlash — also expressed her solidarity. German journalism lecturer Jana Wiske wrote in Der Spiegel news weekly that the situation was not surprising, given that out of 419 German journalists at the World Cup, only 49 are women.