My comments on the matter mainly concerns female pundits on Swedish TV. Like in the 2023 world cup, they not only had female commentators but at times even the presenter and experts were female.@Dee & @Modo
Question for you - are the female pundits any good - like so said, don’t get the same commentators over here.
My guess is that’s the crux of the matter - the claim being that they’re shit and being given the gig not because of ability - so what’s the feeling?
I get the “idea” that a make that’s played at the top has a lot more “experience “ in the game… but I just can’t shift an image of a pundit panel consisting of Harry Kane, Jack Grealish & John Terry (in full kit) and that fills me with great sadness.
So I thought they were taking it to a new extreme, basically overcompensating to reach some kind of equality.
In Sweden it's common to hear the phrase "it's time for a female..." be it prime minister or the next presenter for some program. Merit just doesn't factor in at times.
A few years ago some in the media were pushing for the coach of the female team to take over the men's team. Obviously the Swedish FA just ignored it.
They (the Swedish FA) were actually reported to the Equality Ombudsman, a government agency that works on behalf of the Swedish parliament and government to promote equal rights, because they believed that the women's national team were being discriminated since they weren't getting the same compensation the men were. Well, the results of the report was actually quite embarrassing, but that's a different story.
Back to your question, I honestly don't have a lot of complaints about female English pundits, definitely not the presenters. I really like Kelly Dalglish and what's her name on the show with Carra, Henry and Richards.
Sue Smith, Karen Carney and Laura Woods are quite good. Especially the latter who I listened to on Talksport. But some, I'm not sure of their names, Eni Aluko being one, are just horrible to say the least and I'm not the biggest fan of Alex Scott either but she's OK, I guess.
I mainly watch the Swedish broadcast, but I do watch clips from SKY, BBC, ITV etc from time to time, it's just a bit tedious to find the whole pre/post match segments. So, maybe I'm not the best person to judge their punditry.