David Woods

Thu 31 December 2020 18:15, UK

Leeds United beat West Brom 5-0 in our last game out but all you’ll have heard in the last couple of days is how ignorant the club has been for tweeting about Amazon Prime pundit Karen Carney.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the last hour of the Breakfast show on talkSPORT this morning was almost exclusively Karen-gate.

We can’t remember talkSPORT being so interested in Leeds since the Spygate scandal they helped to keep in the headlines for so long.

And it’s not just talkSPORT. Every national paper has trotted out a similar piece to the Guardian which said, “How did Leeds United not realise what would happen when they targeted a woman?”

US superstar Megan Rapinoe even got in on the act, calling Carney a “national treasure”.

On talkSPORT (Breakfast, Thursday, 9.30am), Faye Carruthers said that Leeds had the right to call someone out but the mistake they made was bringing Carney’s gender into it.

We respect Carruthers a lot but how did Leeds bring gender into it? The tweet is below and it didn’t even tag Karen Carney into it. If bringing Carney’s gender into it is attaching a clip of Carney being a pundit then Leeds are guilty as charged, as ridiculous as that seems.

Everyone in the game, from Gary Lineker to journalists like Keith Downie, were quick to let the world know what they thought. And Downie’s take was one of the worst.

Maybe he meant to say ‘West Brom’s performance’.

Lineker’s was predictably better.

Our take on the affair – not that it really matters – is that the tweet is very similar to other ones put out by the Leeds social media account.

In the past, it’s targeted Tim Sherwood, Chris Wilder and Gabby Agbonlahor.

There is one difference, of course. The Leeds tweet was always going to lead to a pile-on. And said pile-on would include a torrent of misogynistic/sexist abuse.

That’s not directly the fault of Leeds. But, just as clubs are responsible for fans running onto their pitch, they have to be responsible for content they put up for fans to react to.

And the tweet, unfortunately, was always going to attract the idiot part of the fanbase.

It was also going to attract ire from a passionate fanbase who had finally seen their club promoted after 16 years of trying, despite of Covid not because of it like Carney said.

The fact they couldn’t witness their club get promoted or play in the Premier League because of Covid makes the comment from Carney insensitive as well as a bit silly. Leeds had won five games on the bounce before Covid and lost their first one back.

The tiny minority of fans, as usual, ruin it for everyone. It’s obviously not just Leed fans, either. A Chelsea fan phoned talkSPORT today to say that women should stick to talking about sports they grew up with, like athletics.

So, does that mean that Leeds can call out Gabby Agbonlahor but not Karen Carney?

Agbonlahor got dog’s abuse too after saying silly things about Leeds but seemed to relish it.

The difference is, he wasn’t singled out because of his gender. And a lifetime of struggle wasn’t wiped out in a tirade of abuse.

So, it seems that until fans can respect female pundits, it might be the case.

Individual fans, on the other hand, can call Carney out as long as they don’t resort to abuse.

Jeff Stelling seemingly can, without a hint of a pile-on, despite being a huge figure on Sky Sports. So, who makes the rules?

(It’s worth pointing out that Stelling has since deleted his tweet while the Leeds one is still live.)

One thing we can say is that the wall-to-wall coverage the story is getting is ridiculous and we can’t help but feel it wouldn’t be getting so much attention if it wasn’t about Leeds.

Can we just get back to talking about football in 2021?

In other Leeds United news, ‘Looked like a competition winner’: talkSPORT pundit names Leeds ace who looked awful pre-Bielsa