Phil Neville

[Huyton Layne]

People worried about a coach being sexist in a sport that only allows women to play. Brilliant.

 

[TheBigIguana]

Tweets aside this is a bad appointment for the women's game. A top team appointing someone with no experience managing or coaching on the women's side makes it look like the FA don't care

 

[dublinbluenose]

Tweets aside this is a bad appointment for the women's game. A top team appointing someone with no experience managing or coaching on the women's side makes it look like the FA don't care

Well they did try to cover up for a racist last time out so....

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Absolutely 100% true. Jizzer18, or whatever his Twitter account was.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

Absolutely 100% true. Jizzer18, or whatever his Twitter account was.

The mistake that was ACTUALLY made is that he put beach & he meant b*tch.

 

[jackyboy]

One absolute cretin. However if you look through enough tweets from people trying to be offended you will probably succeed. Same with Holgate and Robertson at Liverpool. People are ridiculous.

 

[blue61]

I'm glad he's found his level.

 

[coollino]

One absolute cretin. However if you look through enough tweets from people trying to be offended you will probably succeed. Same with Holgate and Robertson at Liverpool. People are ridiculous.

In 2012 both of those were kids, P-Nev was in his 30's so there is a difference.

 

[Azzurri]

They’re clearly jokes, but I imagine some of his new players won’t find them funny.

It’s nothing really is it. However, I’ll be running campaign to get this idiot sacked and maybe jailed. Pls get on board.

 

[jackyboy]

In 2012 both of those were kids, P-Nev was in his 30's so there is a difference.

Yeah, I agree that the age is a factor.

However I would wager that it's just a terrible attempt at patter. As opposed to him harbouring Bernard Manning levels of sexist views.

Think this rabbit hole of delving deep into people's tweets, wanting to be offended is a slippery slope.

 

[Brendan Janus]

You can shove political correctness where the sun don't shine !!

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

Quite a bit of pushback to this appointment it seems...

 

[mkrudden]

Tweets aside this is a bad appointment for the women's game. A top team appointing someone with no experience managing or coaching on the women's side makes it look like the FA don't care

Even before these tweets, it had us all talking about the appointment.
So straight away it's been positive for the women's game.

 

[mkrudden]

To me, it's imperative to contextualise the situation.
Are his tweets a window into his genuine thoughts towards women or are they humour based? Is he trying to be funny?
We've all been there where we've got the audience wrong with a joke. Whether that's because they are offended or they don't see the funny side and there is that awkward silence.
When Phil Neville wrote those tweets, his predominate audience was male I would imagine. There will have been some men that didn't find it funny but it's safe to predict at least 2000 people did find it amusing (retweets and likes).
He get's hired as the women's side and the audience retrospectively, and unfairly, changes. He now has lots of women on his account, trawling back (some no doubt angry about the fact a woman hasn't been hired as the women's coach) and what happens- he is judged as having sexist motives based on those tweets.
Surely it's more important to find out whether he is sexist rather than purely analysing the tweets.
If he was sexist, and he believes it's a man's game, why did he apply for the women's job?
For money? unlikely as we all know the disparity between the men's and women's game in relation to finance.
For the platform to then transition to the men's game? Personally, I can't think of one single person who has done the hard graft at women's level to then get an elevated job in the men's.
I would very much imagine Phil Neville is not sexist. Storm in a tea cup.