Eni Aluko has opened up on the reason why ITV snubbed her for Ian Wright during the coverage of the Women’s Euro 2025 final before backtracking on her ‘gaslighting’ dig at Laura Woods
Eni Aluko has claimed that ‘budget cuts’ were the reason ITV overlooked her and chose Ian Wright as part of their coverage for last summer’s UEFA Women’s Euro final.
Last April, former England international Aluko faced backlash after accusing Wright of blocking chances for female pundits through his involvement in women’s football. She subsequently apologised, but ex-Arsenal striker Wright declined to accept it, admitting he felt “disappointed” by her remarks.
Recently, Aluko raised the subject once more on a podcast by moaning that she and Fara Williams had been overlooked to work on England’s Euro 2025 victory against Spain last summer. Wright and former Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha landed the roles for ITV and BBC, respectively.
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Now, speaking on talkSPORT with Jim White and Simon Jordan, Aluko has claimed ITV were looking to ‘cut budgets’ before the Euro 2025 final between England and Spain – and picked Wright instead.
When questioned why she wasn’t part of ITV’s coverage, Aluko said: “I think that’s just their choice, right. They wanted to go with other pundits for the final.”
White then interjected and said: “But you would have wished to have been involved Eni, you wanted that gig?” Aluko responded: “Yeah, of course, but by the time I worked on the Women’s Euros last year, we’d already had a conversation that I wouldn’t be working with ITV as much, so there was already a conversation about my role changing slightly. I was disappointed but the reason was never ‘you’re not good enough to do a final’.
“The reason that was given to me was that ‘we’re cutting budgets, and we’re reducing from three pundits to two, and your contract isn’t the priority, Ian Wright’s is.’ That was the reason given to me.
“So to clarify for everybody that just wants to make a conclusion that I’m just not good enough, it’s just not the case. In the 11 years I’ve been working as a professional pundit, I’ve never ever had a top producer, a director of TV, anyone, say ‘you’re not good enough, you’re struggling, you can’t put your sentences together’.
“Quite the opposite! I’m the geek that goes to the producer and stats guy and goes ‘how can I improve’. I’ve got texts and emails of support saying ‘you were brilliant today’.”
Aluko’s punditry journey began when she made history as the first woman to feature on BBC’s Match of the Day back in September 2014. The 38-year-old, who netted 33 goals across 105 caps for England, maintained her media work whilst still playing and offered analysis for ITV’s broadcast of the 2018 Men’s FIFA World Cup as well as Fox Sports’ coverage of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Following her retirement from professional football in January 2020, Aluko has taken on various positions, including stints as director of football at Aston Villa Women and sporting director at Angel City FC in the United States. During this period, Aluko continued her punditry work for ITV and several other broadcasters.
However, Aluko was overlooked for ITV’s coverage of England’s triumphant Euro 2025 victory over Spain last July, with Emma Hayes, Karen Carney and Wright selected ahead of her.
Sharing his thoughts on the matter, former Crystal Palace chairman Jordan remarked: “I think you’ve been quite fortuitous, I think because of initiatives like DEI, they’ve allowed people to be put into positions in the men’s game that I don’t think they’ve merited, and now that sort of seeds an attitude that you become a stalwart in the women’s game.
“And I listened to your observations about Ian Wright, and I’ve known Ian for 25 years – Ian is not in any shape or form obligated to provide any support structure for you or give you a sense of entitlement. And your position now as a broadcaster will be determined by the value of you, and the fact people potentially aren’t booking you now should give you pause for thought about why they might not be.”
Aluko hit back defiantly and disclosed the discussion she had with ITV before being left out of the final’s coverage. “Hold on, the reason people aren’t booking me is because I’ve taken myself out of the firing line,” the former Chelsea and Juventus striker declared.
“My last conversation with ITV was ‘I’m taking a break from broadcasting’. There was two conversations with ITV, there was the conversation after the men’s Euros which was the end of my contract.
“I asked about ‘are we going to renew?’ And they said ‘no, we’re sort of cutting budgets, and we’re prioritising Ian Wright and Karen Carney.’ That was a conversation back in the summer of 2024.
“I was off-screen for nine months. We agreed that I would then do the (women’s) Euros. That was after the comments about Ian Wright, we had a conversation, and at that point I’d already decided ‘I’m taking a break from this environment, this is no longer something that I think is serveable’.”
Aluko also took aim at Laura Woods after the TNT Sport presenter claimed Aluko’s recent outbursts are “dragging women’s punditry backwards”. Aluko admitted she felt she was “gaslit” by Woods’ comments.
The former England international said: “I respect Laura’s opinion and always have done. I think it’s helpful for her to outline the attributes that go into what you consider a brilliant pundit.
“[Number of] Caps is obviously part of that, as I explained. Caps isn’t the decider but it’s an objective way to say that a person has enough experience to talk about this specific game.
“It’s interesting because Laura was one of the people I would consistently go to. We got on like a house on fire and I would go and ask her how she thought things went.
“Laura, consistently… and I had to look at the messages yesterday and thought ‘hold on, I feel a bit gaslit here’… Laura consistently said to me ‘I think you’re a brilliant broadcaster and pundit’.
“So I think there’s a little bit of serving her argument at this point. Which I respect, she doesn’t agree and that’s fine. But I think there’s an insinuation in there that you don’t meet the standard. I’ve worked too hard for people just to conclude that because you’re not seeing me on screen, you’re not good enough. That’s not true.”
White highlighted her “gaslit” comment as Aluko awkwardly backtracked on the remark. “Not gaslit, I don’t want to say that because she has a view and I appreciate her view.
“She mentioned about little boys being important for the women’s game now and I agree. When I see little boys coming to women’s games now, they have the women on the back of their shirts, they don’t have the names of male pundits.”