"If you're a woman and you get something wrong, you will be held to a higher standard."
ABOUT ALICE.
Alice is a football content creator, producing entertaining videos about Manchester United across a variety of platforms. Accumalating near half a million followers across her platforms, Alice is one of the biggest Man United creators in the world.
Growing up, Alice was football obsessed. Whether she was playing it or making videos about it, there wasn't a time where she wasn't a fan. ''I started football content creation at the end of 2019 when I finished my A-Levels. I had a little experience with YouTube when I was 13 but had no real success with that,'' said Alice.
However, quickly after starting content creation on a regular basis, it became apparent the differences a woman in football media will have to face compared to a male. This reality stemmed from reading fan comments addressing male pundits mistakes compared to a womans'.
''There are some male pundits on TV who I won't name but I don't think are particularly good, I'll hear them say something wrong but no one will say anything. As soon as a female pundit gets something wrong, people clip it up and put it online,'' said Alice.
Alice has faced her fair share of abuse online, but not in the way you might think at first. During her career in football media, Alice has been on the receiving end of unsolicited photos in her inbox from men which according to The Guardian, more than a quarter of UK girls have experienced in their lifetime.
She said: ''I was expecting the sexism, but I wasn't expecting the weird messages. People would send really innapropriate videos & images. I had a public email which people used to bombard with crazy messages multiple times a day.''
''I think a lot of it comes from insecure men and everything Joey Barton was saying online about womens' football. As soon as one of them missed a penalty he will say 'look how bad these penalties are.' I just think there's a small percentage of people who love to hate,'' added Alice.
In December 2025, Joey Barton received a suspended prison sentence for sending offensive X posts targeting female pundits Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko. The ex-footballer posted to his 2.7 million followers calling the two pundits 'the Fred and Rose of football commentary.' Judge Menary said: ''Barton launched a racially charged and sexist attack on Aluko that asserted that a black female broadcaster held her position soley due to her race.''
Alice has since pinpointed that she receives the most amount of hate when she's been given opportunities to work with broadcast companies such as Sky Sports.
''People just say 'oh diverstiy hire'. Stuff like that, because I'm a woman. I feel that when I do something right and get on Sky which a lot of people want to do, I think it's some form of jealousy where another Man United fan thinks he knows more than me, which he might, but he sees me on TV and not him. It could come from a jealousy or insecurity of men thinking they know better than women.''
Whilst it's clear womens sport is being taken more seriously from a broadcasting and business point of view - particularly because of its' increase in participation at grassroots - football fandom online is still a long way from accepting the womens game and its' creators for what they are. Professionals who have dedicated years of their lives to reach the pinnacle of football and football media. However, with half of media rooms consisting of women, more and more female journalists and creators are seeing mens football as a possible career route, something that up until only 20 years ago wasn't seen as a concrete option.
