Gammon annoyed as Alex Scott new host of BBC’s Football Focus | OneFootball

Alex Scott looked set to become the new host of the BBC’s long-running Question of Sport, replacing Sue Barker, but it seems like she will no longer get the job and might be getting another one instead.

The Arsenal legend, who hold a degree in sports journalism and broadcasting as well as track record as an impeccable pundit who is always far more prepared than her male colleagues has, sadly, been met by a predictable outcry from a section of gammon who felt supremely threatened by a woman who knows more than they do, never mind a black one.

The Question of Sport ‘announcement’ came nearly a year to the day that Scott revealed the awful abuse she had to endure when featuring on Strictly, about which you can read more below.

Since then, however, it seems like the BBC has changed their mind and Scott could be in line to take over from Dan Scott as the host of Football Focus, instead.

Once again, it was Gary Lineker who let the cat out of the bag, as he did with the Question of Sport speculation.

The Match of the Day host tweeted and deleted, ‘Congratulations and good luck @AlexScott with your new role presenting Football Focus. With 140 @englandlioness caps and about 350 trophies in the cabinet, I reckon you’ll do brilliantly.’

Let’s see if she actually gets the job this time…

In September 2019, Scott revealed she received death threats and racist abuse simply for appearing on TV’s Strictly Come Dancing.

“I had all of it – for being a woman on TV, for being a woman of colour on TV, that I’m ‘ticking a box’, death threats,” Scott told the Sunday Mirror. “But I’m still standing.”

Twitter messages saying she ‘deserves to die’ are, sadly, something women have to endure on social media simply for existing. If they happen to be living as a queer woman it’s even worse and if they are a woman of colour, well, then it’s just open season.

At the time the article was written for the Sunday Mirror, some of the tweets were still online. Had they contained copyrighted goals from the Premier League, however, no doubt they would have been removed within minutes and the accounts suspended, at the very least.

But racism and other forms of abuse aimed at minorities frequently go unpunished across all social platforms.

It’s a reflection of how seriously we take this matter as a society. As Paddy Power pointed out at the time:

Thankfully, a number of the major Sunday paper’s gave this issue prominence:

The Mail on Sunday, however, gave it just a small piece which was still better than the left-wing Observer that didn’t cover it all.

Let’s see how much coverage they give to the latest round of increased abuse Scott has had to endure.