Transcripts For BBCNEWS Extra Time 20240714

Now on bbc news, extra time. Welcome to extra time, im rob bonnet. Our guest today is an International Footballer with over 100 caps in a club career which has taken her via the United States and three english clubs tojuventus in italy where last season she helped her side to a league and cup double. Shes made news off the pitch too, most notably two years ago when what she has described as an explicitly racist remark by the england coach mark sampson sparked a series of enquiries and disputes, raising even questions about whether the English Football Association itself was a racist organisation. Eniola aluko, meanwhile, will have her own views about how the womens game can develop following the success of this years world cup. And thats where well start. Eniola aluko, welcome to this edition of extra time. Thank you. By general consent, i think its fair to say the recent womens world cup was an enormous success, massive tv audiences, worldwide, much improved playing standards, and worthy winners in the United States of america. Was that something you were expecting, or were you surprised by that . I wasnt surprised at all, actually, with the United States winning. Ive had the experience of playing in the states. For a number of different clubs. For a number of different clubs and friends with a lot of those girls on the team. And theyjust have this relentless winning mentality that is just far above and beyond anyone else in the world right now. But the tournament as a whole was a success, too. Oh, the tournament as a whole, absolutely. I was lucky enough to be covering it with an american broadcaster and every day behind the scenes, there was new records being broken in terms of audience figures. So whether it might be 25 Million People watching france versus brazil quarterfinal or 10, 11 Million People watching bbc in england v usa, it was just groundbreaking and i think every time womens football on an International Global stage is put in front of the world, they lap it up and they love it. And there is a huge appetite for the game now. And yet history tells us that interest will tail off once the players return to their domestic leagues. Is there really any reason for optimism that the womens game may take off this time . I think that is the challenge, i think you are absolutely right to identify that, because we dont womens football to be an event every four years, we want it to be a regular thing that people go and watch every week. So i think the challenge for clubs, particularly in england, is to really harness the fan bases that are already existing, so for arsenal, chelsea, manchester city, liverpool, put the games on before the mens games. And what about the scene in italy, where you play now . Something similar . In italy, similar. Last year, we played fiorentina at the Allianz Stadium withjuventus and its sold out 39,000 people came. But again, it was a one off occasion. When can this become more consistent . Three, four, five times a year, so we are building fan bases to really start having womens football as a habit because football is a habit, is a religion in this country, and its a religion in many other countries and thats what womens football can be if fans turn up more regularly every week. The thing is that fans might vote with their remote controls when it comes to free to air television and its a question of supporting a National Side but they wont vote with their feet, will they, to go and watch a club side in the middle of winter. I think they will. Do you . I would say when you are passionate about a football team, and youre passionate about players, and you have a sense of community with a club, you will go out in the snow, wind, rain, lightning. Thats what football fans do. But attendances in english football, womens football, are not good, are they . They barely get to four figures. No, they havent been. 900 or so. They havent been. And attendances at the world cup werent especially good either, were they . Well, i think france for whatever reason, people only wanted to watch france. When france played, obviously it was sold out. Im not sure why that is but i think in terms of womens football, the problem has been the marketing, the problem has been the broadcasting. Its not in peoples conscious to go out and watch. Now it is. So how do you change that, then . I think it is about saying, first of all the marketing, make it so visible that people cant get away from it because frankly, thats what it feels like with mens football sometimes, even when youre trying to get away from it, its everywhere but also harnessing, as i said, harnessing these fan bases, so put on doubleheaders. Chelsea womens team, my old club, they are playing spurs on the opening day of the season at stanford bridge. We need to start putting it in major stadiums that people already associate big fan bases with, and its occasion so people will pay and go and watch that football. You might regard this as a detail but which match would come first . Would it be the womens match first or the mens match first . Because im concerned on your behalf that maybe if it is the womens match first, the fans will turn up late and if its the womens match second, they will just leave early. I think practically speaking, i believe it should be first because thats when the fan base, the bulk of the fan base is going to start coming to the stadium. Is the Football Association the right body to look after womens football in this country . As you know, there is now quite a big debate about whether the premier league should take over. I think the Football Association have done a greatjob, i think, with the fawsl league. I think they are now the best league in europe in terms of the level of competition, in terms of the level of marketing thats now being done, now there is big sponsorship with barclays, £10 million sponsorship, which is unprecedented around europe, so i have to applaud the fa for what theyve done with the league. I think though, they are missing a huge opportunity to partner with the premier league because the premier league is a huge Global Football brand. And a lot of the top womens clubs are premier league clubs, so it makes absolute sense to harness the premier league brand to really lift womens football up. If the premier league were to take over, the premier league have put an awful lot of store, havent they, behind showing, around the world, a form of entertainment which is well attended. They have managed, largely speaking, to fill stadiums. What they dont want to be associated with a spectacle which lacks that. Absolutely, absolutely. I think the womens game has to build to that point where there is a confidence level in the attendance. But, its a chicken and egg situation. If the premier league takes it on, then potentially people are going to come out in their droves to watch. You just dont know what comes first. I think either way, there is a risk element to it but thats entertainment. Lets talk about you and there is a lot about you in this book here, they dont teach this, which is out now. You grew up on a Council Estate outside birmingham, in the english midlands. What fired your enthusiasm for football . I always say that football was kind of a forced marriage for me. I was born with this ability to play football, no one taught me. No coaching . No coaching whatsoever. I learned just on the estate, i was the only girl out of about 10 boys and ijust had to figure it out. Playing around. You tell me now that you were better than all of them. I was. Yeah, i probably was, actually. And i think thats what made me kind of a bit shocked about this ability that i was just born with and just dribbling around coke cans on the local estate, i think that street grit is in you and i think its the story of a lot of players, wayne rooney and all these guys that went on to do great things, they started out on the street. That is very much my story and i can relate back to that now. But you werent accepted, were you, particularly, by some of the parents of some of the boys were playing with . And that had nothing to do with the fact that you were a girl, or indeed about the colour of your skin. What was that about . I do think it had a lot to do with me being a girl, actually. I think that i grew up in the 90s and womens football, girls playing football still wasnt something that was in the societys consciousness and so i think the parents did find it objectionable, particularly when i am dribbling around their son and making their son look bad, then its like, no, this shouldnt be allowed. So i very much felt like i was kind of doing something wrong. I felt like i was weird, being this girl that could play football and no one else, no other girls i couldnt see other girls doing it. I was playing in a boys team. So you were a bit confused at that point . I was confused, yeah, and there was a time i speak about in the book where i just didnt want to play football anymore because as a young kid, you have this desire to be accepted and liked, and so for parents, if parents are screaming on the sidelines that they dont want me to play football, that really challenged my sense of acceptance and so i thought, well, ill do something else, ill play tennis because at the time, the williams sisters, serena and venus, were huge and prominent. And i remember saying to my mum, i want beads in my hair like venus williams. Because that was what was accepted, so it was a challenge. It was a challenge but i think it came back full circle and i ended up playing football again and now i am here. Your first club in 2001 was Birmingham City and you first played for england in 2004 but you were also embarking on a law degree at university and that eventually resulted in a first class degree. Were you kind of hedging your bets between football and the law at that point . I think thats the perfect way to put it. You havent decided which way you were going to go . I couldnt decide, i think thats the problem. Because growing up, womens football wasnt a career path. It is now, thankfully, because theres enough professional teams and profressional leagues, but when i was growing up, there wasnt. So my parents very much said, listen, you got to go to school, do well in school, go to university and have a fallback position. And i wanted to do that, i wanted to do well in everything i did and so i did my a levels, i went to university and i was inspired to become a lawyer by reading the book to kill a mockingbird. Atticus finch, the lawyer was my big inspiration at the time, even though he wasnt real. I had to try and kind of balance this sort of plan a and plan b of football and law and it wasnt until 2012 really, when the olympics happened, that i was able to then say, ok, this is actually a career path i can follow and i can come back to law later. And this experience in law helped you through the episode which i described my introduction. Ill just set this out for you. Youve been defined, certainly in the uk at least, by your dispute in 2017 with the former england coach mark samson, who made what you regarded as a racist remark about your family. He said he hoped your family wasnt going to bring the disease ebola over to the uk from nigeria. What eventually followed was the end of his career as a coach though not specifically over the remark or the dispute that followed, and also the result was the end of your international career. Now, two years later, what are your reflections on that whole episode . I think i have to say that first of all the comments were admitted by mark samson, so there is no dispute about that. I dont think theres any dispute that there were racist. The barrister who was conducting the investigation said it as such. So i think thats very clear. But she did say that he was not a racist. I mean, thats an opinion, a moot point. The comments were racist so whether somebody is racist for saying racist comments, i dont know. I think thats separate discussion, but i think its very important to say the comments were deemed as racist and i thought they were too. And they were admitted. I think the most important lesson to take from that was that i had a choice to make. I had a choice to say, ok, im probably going to lose my england career as a result of this. Which you havent played since . I havent played since. But as a result, in standing and saying this is not acceptable, this is not something that an International Player should have to go through, i would like to think that the procedures for complaints have changed in the Football Association, that whistleblowing complaints have changed, although i didnt set out to be a whistleblower. And i think youve seen a trend in the last three years all around the world of female players, whether its new zealand, australia, usa, denmark, norway, ireland republic if ireland saying this is not acceptable. Were not going to accept substandard conditions because we are women. Were not going to accept substandard conditions if were representing our international team. And i think im very much part of that wider conversation. So. But you sparked the conversation, effectively, the case certainly did, anyway. Yeah, i think the case did. I didnt set out to, it was always meant to be a confidential exercise. The fa approached me to give my feedback on the culture of the team. I did so very honestly. It was then leaked publicly. And then i had to deal with that challenge. It became a very complicated story. It became a complicated story. But i think its important to say that the positive to bring out of that, and again what i address in the book is, you know, women being able to now say, in whatever circumstance racism, sexism, equal pay, whatever it may be being able to say actually, if it costs me something, im going to stand for what is going to benefit many other people. And it cost your career though, do you think thats worth it . I think its fair to say that. I think people can argue either way and say, well, you could have not been picked for england and thats very true. 102 caps isnt a bad career after all. It wasnt a bad career after all, maybe it was coming to an end. Im glad you said that. Maybe it was coming to an end, you are 32 now. I was 30 at the time. My last game for england i played 90 minutes so i didnt think it was coming to an end at the time but, you know, everything in life happens for a reason. That door was meant to close. And youre still playing top level football in italy. Yes, yeah, and i dont know whether i wouldve been. Had it not have happened the way it had, i dont know whether i would be here now. Two questions in one now during this dispute, you refused to describe the Football Association as institutionally racist, are you still unwilling to do this . And do you believe that the fa has absorbed the lessons of your case and is properly addressing the issue . Yes, i mean, i refused to address them or, sort of, label the fa as institutionally racist. Because . I felt that it wasnt my place. I could in the comment on my own case. I could only comment on the issues of my case. The fa is a huge organisation, one that i had a very Good Relationship with, actually, up until the case and actually, even now when i talk about it in the book, post case, id like to think we have a Good Relationship. I worked with the fa post case on addressing some of the whistleblowing procedures and the rules and policies, and just moving on and being able to learn lessons from that. So i didnt want to put myself in that position to label and its a big organisation. I had to deal with maybe five or six different people who were disappointed in the way they handled my case, but the fas much wider than that. As far as samsons concerned, he has apologised. Have you accepted his apology . He hasnt apologised directly, no. So what is the natue of his apology . Its an indirect apology . He apologised through a publication, but i havent spoken to him. You havent spoken to him, 0k. For me, i think an apologys much better directly. Ok, so if you were to meet him as you walked out of the studio today, what would the atmosphere be like . How would the conversation go . Honestly i think. You know, i speak about this in my book, that you have to get to a point, i think, where youre able to forgive and youre able to deal with the pain of some difficult situations and take lessons from that, but also be able to have a conversation with the person that might have upset you or hurt you and say, you know what, actually, because ive dealt with that and im 0k, and we can have a normal conversation. So i genuinely think that will be the case. I wish him well in his coaching career, i think everybody deserves a chance to rectify their errors and mistakes including me, and i think that will be the same feeling, i hope. And youll say, im sure that women footballers deserve equal pay to the men, as you know this is an ongoing issue in american football. The total prize money for the womens world cup amounted to £30 million. For the men, the year before in 2018, it was £400 million. Make your case for equal pay. Well, i think the case for equal pay is individual. I think it depends. It is a case by case basis. I think for Us Womens National team, who are leading this case, they absolutely deserve equal pay because theyre bringing in more money than the us mens team. That has been accounted for, that has been documented. They are the most successful sports team in us history, and household superstars. So if anybodys going to achieve equal pay, its going to be them. And yet talks have broken down, havent they, in the last few days . Unfortunately so. Mediation has broken down. U nfortu nately. Apparently the United States Federation Said that the womens representative was aggressive and misleading in his negotiations, in their negotiations. I cant really comment on the details of the case, but what i can say is i dont understand why the Us Federation do not accept that equal pay is the starting point. Its not the destination. It should be the starting point for a womens team who have put us soccer on the map. The mens team havent. Thats just a fact. Absolutely, and they are the world champions. Megan rapinoe, the captain, has made an impression, whats your impression of her . Shes one of my inspirations at this moment in time because of what she stands for and her unapologetic nature in doing so, and what i love about megan rapino is that she backs it up with performance. She backs it up with a rather curious way as well sometimes, the video, you may have seen it, holding the world cup, i deserve this. Its a little bit egocentric, isnt it . Dont you think it would have been better if she said we deserve this . There is no i in team. I think its cultural. I think in england, we do wince a bit at. Were a lot more reserved over here in england, i think in america. Humilitys not a bad thing, is it . Humilitys not a bad thing, but i think, you know, if youre arrogant and you choose to be, youd better back it up, and i think shes backed it up. She also said, you cant win a championship with out gays on yourteam. Its never been done before, ever. Thats science, right there. What has sexuality got to do with whether youre a good footballer or not . I think Megan Rapinoe, aside from equal pay and notjust talking equal pay for them but talking about equal pay for women, she is big on anti homophobia and gay rights. So i think she is trying to make a point to say, i am a gay woman and this is what i represent, and i can be free in who i am and in my own skin, which a lot of gay women or gay men may not be. More generally, i suppose the question is whether she should be involving herself in either washington or sexual politics. Shes obviously been an outspoken critic of president trump, and i suppose the other question is whether anyone should take any notice of her. Well, i think if you want to take. Weve just spent two minutes talking about her, so shes doing herjob. But i think in terms of politics. She doing it effectively . I suppose thats the point. I think so. I absolutely think so. I think if you were to do a poll of millions of people, they would say that Megan Rapinoe has a huge impact on them and the conversation. Youre not always going to please people, thats one thig ive learned. Youre not always going to please people and what you say and the stances you take. However, you can start conversations, you can challenge, you can say, even though this is the status quo, this needs to change, and i think thats what shes doing as an athlete. And as athletes, we have a responsibility, actually, to use our platforms for these kinds of conversations. We cantjust put the ball in the back of the net and forget about the world. We impact the world, massively, and we can use our platform. So i think thats what she does. I think washington involved her, i think donald trump invited her and she said, i dont want to come. Lets talk about your future. Female sports broadcasters have made big breakthroughs, havent they, in the last five years or so . I think its fair to say that you are regarded as a success but you written a book about concerns at your appearances on itv were tokenistic. Were they . I dont know whether they were. I cant help being a black woman. Thats who i am, thats who i was born to be. But i know that i would never have been hired by itv if i was a bad pundit. The combination of the two depends on what people want to look at. Do they want to look at my punditry skills or do they want to see me as a black woman . Thats what tokenism is. People think that youre there just because of who you are. I decided to be the best possible token i could be. I mean, i cant change that. And you did your research, thats part of the key of it, isnt it . Yeah, i had to be, unfortunately or maybe fortunately, as women, we have to be that much better than the guys. The bars higher, isnt it . To earn our place, to earn a spot. And aside from the fact that i love football and i love nerding out on all the stats, i felt like i needed to really be that prepared and so when i got on air, i felt comfortable. I felt free with the information that was in my head. I wasnt nervous, i got nervous a few times but it allowed me to feel more relaxed because im prepared. As nervous as you might fill in a courtroom as a barrister maybe . Maybe thats the course youre going to take in the end . Maybe, i do love what barristers do. I trained as solicitor, but maybe in the future education, being a barrister is as close as possible law is to the sport, that kind of winning and losing. So, maybe. I can see you arguing a case in the court of law somehow. Ok, ill remember that. Thank you. Eniola aluko, nice to meet you. Thank you very much. Hello, once again. Its time we got you right up to date with how we see the rest of the week developing right across the British Isles, and the rest of the week is certainly going to be marked by quite a considerable change for some parts, in that it will be cooler, wetter and windier and, for that change, we have to thank a frontal system which has been lurking away towards the North Western quarter of the British Isles in recent days. Itjust hasnt managed to get across the British Isles simply because of the presence of the High Pressure that has brought the heat fro mthe continent, particularly to easter areas. From the continent, particularly to easter areas. But wednesday sees this weather front producing some really quite heavy bursts of rain across the southwest, through wales, and then to the midlands, on towards the north east of england, during the latter part of the afternoon. And there the temperature profile no more the 33, its closer to 23 or 2a as a high, and cooler than that across northern and western parts, where at least there will be a bright end to the day. But come thursday, well be looking again towards the atlantic to see progress of more atlantic weather fronts into northern and western parts of the British Isles. So its wet and windy fare for the western side of scotland, through to northern ireland, too. Generally speaking, quite a bit of cloud across england and wales, but a lot of dry weather. And again, that temperatures just about pushing to 23 or 2a at best, on notable south westerly breeze. From thursday on into friday, were just going to follow the line of the front back into the atlantic. A little ripple in that weather front thickens the cloud, and eventually another pulse of pretty wet weather gets into the western part of scotland, initially, then right across scotland, through northern ireland, into the northern parts of england and maybe just flirting with the North Western quarter of wales. Again, thanks to the influence of a bit of a High Pressure, the south should be that wee bit drier. Friday on towards the weekend, weve still got that same weather front just weaving its way across the British Isles but, once that front has made its way down and across us, notice how those colours really begin to drain away, and here we are into the yellow hues, with a touch of blue there, creeping into northern and western parts of the British Isles. A taste of autumn, dare i say it, just in time for the meteorological start of autumn on sunday. So saturday sees the progression of that weather front ever further towards the south slow progress there. So south eastern parts may well stay dry for a good part of the day. But once the weather front completes its journey, then were inot a north north westerly flow, hence that chillier feel right across the piste, and it will be a day marked by sunny spells and showers and, as i say, meteorological autumn arrives with a bang. So. Im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore the headlines bolivia calls for co operation to fight the wildfires raging through the amazon rainforest. We hear why Indigenous People across the region fear for the future. 0pposition leaders in britain have pledged to Work Together to try to stop a no deal brexit. Im rico hizon in london. Also in the programme arrested twice in five weeks but still defending freedom of speech in the phillippines. We hearfrom journalist maria ressa. For the generation growing up now, your battle will be