Eni Aluko says football is not safe for women, is she right?

Aluko now works as a football pundit and has been at the centre of plenty of social media discussions on female commentary in men’s football, as covered In our article on women in football.

The recent comments from Aluko have prompted another huge response on social media but what did she actually say?

“I say it all the time, men’s football in this country is still not a safe space for women,” Aluko told The Sports Agents podcast.

“Whether you're the wife of an average football fan who loves football or you're me, who works in professional broadcasting, it's not a safe space. It's not a safe space physically going to a stadium and it's not a safe space online.

“So, when we look at the next generation of young girls who are alive to football because of the Lionesses and who likely want to get into football, whether they play or work behind the scenes, what would make them want to do that when there's daily casual racism, sexism, misogyny toward the women at the top?

"I just refuse to now sit back and go ‘Oh, it's part of the job.’ I can't do that anymore. For me, I'm talking to government [about] how we are going to create laws so that this is not so easy.”

As a small aside, I had the pleasure of attending Buckland Athletic v Shepton Mallet in the Toolstation Western League on Thursday night. It was a cracking match, played in front of 168 fans of grassroots football. At a rough guess, a third of the crowd were female and everybody, man, woman, girl and boy, seemed to be having a great time.

It is easy for me say this. I don’t know what it feels like to be a female in a football stadium or a female discussing the game online.

We want to hear from football fans. What do you think of Eni Aluko’s comments? Is she right or is she way off the mark?

Please leave any further comments on our social media pages or you can email them to me on tim.herbert@newsquest.co.uk