BBC presenter says women's football is so good 'you could be watching men'
BBC Breakfast viewers have been left enraged after presenter Roger Johnson, who also works as a news anchor for BBC's North West regional news, spoke about men's football throughout a segment on the Women's Euros. Viewers took to social media to share their opinions on the comments made on this morning's show, July 30.
During the segment on the successes of England's Lionesses at this year's tournament, Roger said compared the 'quality of football' between the men's and women's England squads and viewers were less than pleased with his comments which seemed to be focussed more on men.
One viewer wrote on Twitter: “'The quality of the football is so good, you could almost be watching men play', absolute clanger on BBC Breakfast this morning!" While another added: "Awkward interview this morning on @BBCBreakfast “You can almost compare woman’s football to the men’s”….. Cheers Roger, I understand it better now."
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Roger Johnson said on the programme this morning, during an interview with Carol Thomas, captain of England in the final of the 1984 European championships: "It's had a platform on BBC One, it's been seen by millions of people, and the quality of the football crucially is really high isn't it? And any of the naysayers watching, it's almost interchangeable, you could be watching men play, the quality is that good."
Carol responded: "Yeah and to be honest, the quality has always been good, even back when I was playing," before Roger clarified and said: "Oh no no, I'm not saying it wasn't." She said: "No I know, that's fine. A lot of people enjoyed watching women's football and as I said before, we don't want to be compared to the men's game in any way. We're happy playing football, just women playing football."
Another viewer took to Twitter, adding: "'You could almost be watching the men they are that good' has to be the poorest choice of words ever."
Whilst a fourth said: "Interviewing a woman about football on @BBCBreakfast then talking about men all the way through is quite baffling @RogerJ_01 - watch it back and please reflect." Another agreed, they wrote: "So the women’s football game is such good quality now that it’s almost like watching men play? What the hell sort of comment is that."
This year's Women's Euros has seen England's Lionesses progress to the final after some triumphant victories over rival countries, including an 8-0 thrashing of Norway in the group stage. They will take to the pitch for the final tomorrow, Sunday, July 31, at 5pm to take on Germany as they are currently one step away from winning the whole tournament.
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