After a recent loss at the Women’s World Cup final to Spain, team England had salt rubbed in their wounds by a panel on Sky News that criticized the squad for having a “lack of diversity” that “doesn’t represent diverse Britain.”
During the news segment, panelist Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones predominantly took issue with a recent newspaper cover from the Daily Mirror that featured seven players on the team, six of whom were white.
Emmanuel-Jones, an entrepreneur and Jamaican-born British farmer, according to Breitbart, argued that the players didn’t have diverse enough skin tones and as such didn’t properly represent the country.
“I don’t want to pour boiling water on it, but it isn’t that diverse,” he stated. “It really sticks out at you. They look blonde and blue-eyed. If it was the men’s World Cup, it would be very representative of the Britain that we’re in and very, very diverse,” he added.
Emmanuel-Jones then attempted to look for deeper meaning behind the reason most of the women are white.
“What jumps out at you is that this doesn’t represent diverse Britain. It’s all these blonde, blue-eyed girls – and I wish them well – but I do think we need to ask ourselves questions about why it is that there is a lack of diversity.”
A female host then appeared to challenge the other panelist and said, “They’re playing sport at an elite level, and they are from Britain, and they’re women.”
The male panelist then insisted that the appearance of the women was integral to growing the sport.
“It doesn’t make any difference. If the whole idea behind this is to encourage more women to go and enter the sport, you need some sort of representation there to say ‘whatever background you come from, you can get to this sort of level.'”
This was convincing enough for the other panelists to agree, with the former then stating that “it’s so important when you speak to these little girls that they see some one that they can relate to.”
A third panelist, who was also a woman, echoed the remarks.
“It makes such a difference. That little girl might then end up playing football because she’s seen someone who looks like her.”
Emmanuel-Jones claims to be one of Britain’s only black commercial farmers, according to the Daily Mail. The entrepreneur set up a program called the Black Farmer Scholarship and was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire by the royal family in 2020 for his services in farming.
Another English broadcaster faced criticism during the Women’s World Cup Tournament after getting too personal with diversity-related questions.
A reporter for BBC World Service asked a member of the Moroccan team if they “have any gay players” on the team because it’s “illegal to have a gay relationship” in the country.
The moderator, however, interjected before any answer could be given and said, “Sorry, this is a very political question. So we’ll just stick to questions relating to football.”
The BBC later apologized.
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