Race Row Breaks Out After Sky News Panellist Claims England’s World Cup Lioness Squad “Isn’t That Diverse”

A controversy has arisen after Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones MBE, an entrepreneur and one of Britain’s few black commercial farmers, commented on the lack of ‘diversity’ in the England’s World Cup Lioness squad. The Mail has more.

A race row has erupted after an entrepreneur claimed England’s World Cup Lioness squad “isn’t that diverse” and filled with “blonde, blue-eyed” football stars.

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones MBE, who claims to be one of Britain’s only black commercial farmers, said the squad was “not representative” of Britain.

His comments, made during a discussion of the Sunday front pages on Sky News, have received backlash online.

Some people have blasted the entrepreneur as “racist”, criticising him for not accepting that the “best players” were chosen.

“I don’t want to pour boiling water on it but it isn’t that diverse,” the farmer said, describing the front page of the Daily Mirror – which featured a host of England stars on its cover.

“It really sticks out at you. They look blonde and blue-eyed. If it was the men’s World Cup it would be very representative of the Britain that we’re in and very, very diverse.

“What jumps out at you is that this doesn’t represent diverse Britain. It’s all these blonde blue-eyed girls – and I wish them well – but I do think we need to ask ourselves questions about why it is that there is a lack of diversity.”

He continued: “If you could have the men’s team which is very very diverse, why doesn’t that translate to the women’s team?” …

The entrepreneur set up the Black Farmer Scholarship, which aims to help and encourage ethnic minorities to work in the rural community – an under-represented area. He was appointed an MBE in 2020 for his services to British farming. 

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: Rafe Heydel-Mankoo has pointed out on Twitter that only 4.2% of the population of England is black, while three players in the England women’s football team squad of 23 are black, which amounts to 13%.

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RW
RW
2 years ago

Why not do something about it, wisecrack? As person with more money than brains, you could as well spend money encouraging more black girls to get into football despite their equally black families apparently don’t do that. There’s doubtlessly talent to be found there.

stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

Better not. Football is a dead end job for 99.9% of footballers.

The last thing we need is more people trying to play football.

transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I certainly agree, though I think RW makes a good point. Grievance merchants always want someone else to fund the redress of their “grievance” – they never want to do anything about it themselves.

RW
RW
2 years ago

I was actually trying to make a different point, namely, do we perhaps have a cultural issue here, ie, are black parents as happy with their daughters trying to make a careers in sports as they’re with their sons?

Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 years ago

Is he not saying that the men’s team is actually over-diverse given the UK-wide ethnic mix?

soundofreason
soundofreason
2 years ago

He’s just being a prat. Ignore him.

Boomer Bloke
2 years ago
Reply to  soundofreason

No, he is being a racist @$$#0£€. If a white person said something similar or took issue with what he said they would very quickly find themselves cancelled with rainbow clad knee taking plod knocking down their front door to check their thinking and marking their card with a non crime hate incident, at best.

transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  soundofreason

This country will soon be majority non-white. “Ignoring” people like him, who hate us, won’t be an option.

Boomer Bloke
2 years ago

China, Japan, any African teams? How diverse are they?

elsvan
elsvan
2 years ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

Quite. I never hear anyone saying that the Nigerian team is not very diverse.

godknowsimgood
godknowsimgood
2 years ago

The Lionesses needed to have a couple of trans women in the team, to give them a bit more aggression, and they would not only probably therefore have won the World Cup but they would also have been more diverse, thus killing two birds with one stone.

godknowsimgood
godknowsimgood
2 years ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

And even if they still wouldn’t have won the World Cup with a couple of trans women in the team, they would, more importantly, have been more diverse.

LaptopMaestro
LaptopMaestro
2 years ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

Two men in the team would have been more than enough

Stuart
2 years ago

Race Row Breaks Out…utter bollocks. Sky News have deliberately gone out to find some malcontent to parrot what they want so they have their headline.

transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  Stuart

Sky owned by Comcast, run by Brian Roberts, who is a supporter of the US Democratic Party…

Covid-1984
Covid-1984
2 years ago

That’s why common sense GBNews outperforms Sky every night

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  Stuart

BBC and SKY do this all the time. They get other people to say what they prefer not to be saying…….They will often get Joe Bloggs in the street to spout their social justice crap so they cannot be accused of doing it.

7941MHKB
7941MHKB
2 years ago
Reply to  varmint

I often wonder how many folk get stopped and “interviewed”, until they find someone to spout the most absurd woke bolixs that they actually want to broadcast. Or maybe they are just “resting” Equity members.

I live in hope that one day we will be shown some “interviews” that litter the cutting room floor.

An “interviewer” getting a good, honest clump round the ear’ole would be cheering.

NickR
2 years ago

My daughter played junior football at a fairly high level. Unlike boys football there aren’t masses of teams or leagues. The result is that with boys they can play locally, it doesn’t cost so much, in cash or time for parents to support a son playing. With girls you’re regularly driving an hour or 2 to away games, an hour or 2 back. It isn’t a race thing so much as a class thing.
A surprising number of top female players have attended US universities. I suspect the women’s team reflects a different social dynamic than the men’s team. With boys, talent is spotted at 6, 7 or 8 & the clubs fund training etc, with girls it happens much later by when loads of talented girls have already drifted away.
Class trumps race in girls football.

LaptopMaestro
LaptopMaestro
2 years ago
Reply to  NickR

Women will never be a match for men in sports that involve strength, speed, muscle mass and stamina.

In tennis, the Williams sisters, who were coached from infants, and were absolutely at the top of the female game, were both beaten by a man outside the top 200, who allegedly had a beer and a cigarette between the two matches.

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  LaptopMaestro

Serana Williams was actually asked on TV how she thought she would get on against men and she replied “If I played Andy Murray I would lose 6-0 6-0. —There is nothing to be ashamed of. Men are more powerful than women. The social engineers just cannot accept that though.

D J
D J
2 years ago

Perhaps he could comment on advertising. Not many straight,English role models to see there.

ekathulium
ekathulium
2 years ago

That´s terrible! “They all look blonde and blue-eyed” – how wayciss can you get?

huxleypiggles
2 years ago

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is guilty of one of those newfangled Hate Crime thingies.

Send him down!

DomH75
2 years ago

In the old days, people watching the TV would have said ‘Silly old fu**er!’ carried on to the next item and forgotten about it. Trouble is, in the internet age, grievance grifters and click-baiters seem to spend all day watching for stuff such as this to get clicks.

In much of the UK, you can walk around all day long and never see anyone of a different ethnicity from white. There are certain parts of the country where people who aren’t white moved – mostly major cities in order to find work – when they or their parents or grandparents arrived. Otherwise there’s a reasonable mix of ethnicities in certain port cities, but for the most part, percentage-wise, the UK is still overwhelmingly white, especially given the huge influx of white people from the EU from the early 2000s.

Freddy Boy
2 years ago

Thank F-ck the Lioneses lost ! 1966 would have ceased to exsist , ironically The 66 England Mascot was called World Cup Willie 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Corky Ringspot
2 years ago

People like this simply have to be ignored. They’re beneath contempt. Desperately unintelligent, and of course they’re racists.

varmint
2 years ago

This person is a race card playing imbecile. ——-Is he really suggesting that a football team should have a certain quota of black people in it for silly social justice reasons? In the men’s football you will see hundreds of black players. not because they are black but because they are good enough to be in the team. I can tell this imbecile now that if enough black women played football and they were good enough they would be in the team, unless he has evidence to the contrary that black players that are good enough are being kept out of the team.

Jane G
Jane G
2 years ago

Right. That’s the last time I ever buy any of his damn sausages.
Racist.