I’m well aware that Alessia Russo is not an Arsenal player and she might never be one, but she was recently, sadly and against her will, involved in a rather embarrassing situation that bothered me so much I had to write about it here.
For those of you that know what I’m talking about you can skip this paragraph, but if you don’t here’s the short version: At a Manchester United ceremony, were she was about to be given a trophy for Goal Of The Season, a certain John Shields (Chief Executive of the Man Utd Foundation) made a comment about how he didn’t want to give her the trophy because it was too heavy.
You can watch the incident HERE
He has apologized about it and mentioned he would’ve done the same thing to a male player, which of course can be true and it can be absolute bullsh*t at the same time. I’m leaning towards the latter to be honest. There are many things wrong with that comment and it’s hard to pick just one thing. It was cringe worthy and I felt really bad for her.
I’d like to think that things like that wouldn’t happen at Arsenal but I don’t have a lot of faith these days in the steps that have been taken overall. Might be just because this is fresh in my memory at the moment. It certainly feels like a “two steps back, one step forward” type of situation… and alongside the conflicting kickoff times PLUS the WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TV RIGHTS NOT BEING SECURE IN MANY COUNTRIES it’s truly shocking.
These are the “little” comments that prove that we still have such a long way to go. If these comments are coming from a super high up in one of the most famous sporting empires the world has ever seen, imagine the kind of things that they say away from the public eye.
Could this be something that makes Alessia want totally out of Man Utd? I mean, I’d like to see her at Arsenal but not if it means weird stuff like this happens to her, where she is clearly not enjoying herself, specially at a moment when its supposed to be all about her.
Oh, and he also called her “Alexia” which is wrong in many ways… How does he not know her name? His team’s best player? A historic Eurocup winner? The person who scored THAT back heel goal? Or… does he actually think Alexia Putellas, aka Alexia is… Alessia?! Oh my days.
We gotta keep fighting for all players, regardless of their team.
d ❤
THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
A very subjective look into AWFC 
Leave a comment