ITV beat the BBC, but all TV coverage of women’s football needs to grow up

It is witless to compare men’s and women’s football, but we can reasonably compare the coverage of major England matches. Both BBC and ITV showed the Euro 2025 final yesterday and the personalities on screen for ITV ensured that its coverage narrowly shaded it.

Both approaches were unashamedly partisan, which turns the broadcasts into something of a head-to-head charisma battle: Ian Wright, Karen Carney and Emma Hayes have a bit more about them than the BBC’s Ellen White, Steph Houghton and left-field pick Nedum Onuoha. Rio Ferdinand, incidentally, tweeted: “How’s Fara Williams not on the BBC coverage?” The alternative to the heart-on-the-sleeve broadcast would have been to go for gravitas but the BBC fell between two stools. You’re not going to out-vibe Wrighty and co, basically.

Hosting by Gabby Logan and Laura Woods, and commentary from Robyn Cowen and Seb Hutchinson, were, as always with those four, routinely excellent. The BBC got first dibs on the post-match interview with Chloe Kelly and ITV blundered by cutting away from its own chat with her shortly afterwards. Perhaps, like Sarina Wiegman, the ITV director is a lucky general, though, because they then cut back to Kelly later and ended up getting a few more seconds with the team’s superstar.

An inevitable decision in the coverage of women’s football is the amount of focus on the social angle and the growth of the game. For some, a vital part of the broader context; for others, preachy. Somewhat surprisingly, ITV out BBC’d the BBC yesterday on this score, with A Young Person doing a poem about the inspirational Lionesses who make us feel good when they do football good. It made an AI-generated Hallmark card read like TS Eliot, and then a video where they filmed Beth Mead’s reactions to Mr Cholmondley-Warner-ish black-and-white videos of news reporters asking 1970s players questions like “and who looks after the baby when you are playing football?”

Mead bristled righteously, particularly at a clip of Brian Glanville saying “I can’t see women’s football catching on”. Mead said: “I’d be very interested to speak to one of them men if any of them are still around. Can you set up an interview?” Fortunately for Brian, he died this year. Sage to the last.

It was, you have to say, excellent TV, skilful and provocative, and it hit Carney right in the feels. Karen told us she was welling up and “I am not going to lie, I found it quite triggering. There is now a little girl and little boy that now knows it is OK to want to be a footballer.” Pace yourself, Karen, there’s still half an hour until kick-off. Wright and Hayes also did appropriate amounts of Her Game Too-ing and fair enough. Over on the BBC, a pop singer called Self-Esteem did a song called Focus is Power and it doesn’t get more earnest than that.

Maybe because the game itself is younger at this level of mainstream interest, or because some of these Lionesses were able to play very long careers, but it feels like the pundits are generally a lot closer both in age and personally to the women they are commenting on. For instance on the BBC: White, only 36 and a team-mate of many of these, whereas a men’s game will have Alan Shearer or whoever, guys who belong to a different generation who can, sometimes, put the boot in where needed. This is partly why the coverage of England women players and manager is largely uncritical.

For example, it was put to ITV’s Anita Asante before the match that maybe Lauren James wasn’t fit. Firmly, Asante said: “If Lauren James is in the starting line-up she is 100 per cent.” That did not really seem to be the case, though, and it symptomatic of a general reluctance to criticise that the men’s game has largely moved beyond.

Hard to see Gabby Logan saying that the England women’s team had played s---, isn’t it, as Gary Lineker did about Harry Kane and co? Not that yesterday called for anything beyond cheerleading. Women’s football is, as yet, still part elite sport and part feelgood story and social project and the coverage reflects that but it will be really interesting to see if there’s room for a Roy Keane or Alan Hansen type in a few years as the TV coverage matures.