Eni Aluko: ‘My career has been hit by standing up to Joey Barton’

She said: “This happens in lots of industries – when women stand up for themselves, their career takes a hit.

“I’ve been doing broadcasting for 11 years. I’m not new to it. And in the last 18 months I’ve done the least TV I’ve ever done.

“That’s just a fact. That’s not a feeling, that’s an opinion. That’s a fact. So I think people can draw their own conclusions from that.

“There is a double standard where there is still a limited amount of opportunities for women, female broadcasters, both in the men’s and the women’s game.

“We’re still competing for two or three seats maximum, which includes the presenters.

“What the Joey Bartons, and some male football fans, want is for women to get off the TV.”

Aluko said she faced threats of violence and abuse on social media after Barton posted twice on social media site X in January 2024, posts a judge has ruled were defamatory.

Barton had claimed Aluko’s father was financially corrupt and that her private education made her a “hypocrite”, and accused her of “using the race card”, the court heard.

Aluko said she had to leave the house in disguise because of the hearing.

She said: “There’s 45 tweets that Joey Barton has tweeted about me.

“And what that does is it impacts you in real life, where it just feels like a wave of abuse and it feels like you’re in a fishbowl. And it means that I’m more self-conscious.

“I don’t feel that I can just go out and be free to do what I do. For the first week I was disguising myself and some people think that’s over the top, but that’s genuinely the impact it had on me.”