ENI ALUKO has become a successful TV pundit since retiring from women's professional football.
The star hung up her boots in January 2020 after playing a whopping 102 times for England between 2004 and 2016.
Who is Eni Aluko?
Eni Aluko MBE is a football broadcaster and former professional player.
She was born on February 21, 1987, in Lagos, Nigeria and moved to Birmingham, England, with her family when she was six months old.
Aluko played many sports as a child, including tennis, but found a love for football after playing with her brother, Sone Aluko, who also went on to become a professional footballer.
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As of 2024, Sone is signed by Ipswich Town but he has also played for Reading and Fulham in the past.
Eni started her own football career with Leafield Athletic Ladies and went on to play for several big teams.
Aluko has also had an impressive international career, representing England at three World Cups (2007, 2011, 2015) and two European Championships (2009 and 2013), as well as playing for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics.
In January 2020 Eni was named as the Sporting Director for Angel City FC, a team based in Los Angeles.
She became the Director of Recruitment for the team in August 2022 but officially left the role in 2023.
Who has Eni Aluko played for?
Aluko had an illustrious career as a professional footballer before her retirement in 2020.
The full list of teams that she represented can be seen below:
- 2001-2004 - Birmingham City
- 2004-2007 - Charlton Athletic
- 2007-2009 - Chelsea
- 2009-2010 - Saint Louis Athletica
- 2010 - Atlanta Beat
- 2011 - Sky Blue FC
- 2012 - Birmingham City
- 2012-2018 - Chelsea
- 2018-2019 - Juventus
Has she been a pundit before?
Aluko is a successful and popular pundit, and made history when she became the first female pundit on Match of the Day in 2014.
She continued punditry alongside her football career during the television coverage of the 2016 Euros, the women's Euros in 2017, the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Women's World Cup.
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Aluko was part of Amazon Prime's pundit team for their coverage of the 2020/21 Premier League season.
She also appeared on ITV's coverage of the Euro 2020 tournament and is a regular face on the channel's football coverage.
What was the controversy surrounding her and Mark Sampson?
In August 2017, Aluko accused the then-England manager Mark Sampson of "racist" comments
Sampson was found by independent barrister Katherine Newton to have made "ill-judged attempts at humour, which, as a matter of law, were discriminatory on the grounds of race."
Newton added: "It was fundamentally important to emphasise that I have not concluded that MS is a racist."
It was alleged that Sampson had told Aluko to make sure her Nigerian relatives did not bring Ebola to Wembley and he also asked Drew Spence how many times she had been arrested.
The FA was forced to issue an apology after it was found that they had known about the comments since 2016 and had cleared Sampson of any wrongdoing.
Sampson later apologised, saying: “When players made complaints, they needed to be handled with the respect they deserved."
What did Joey Barton say about Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko?
Joey Barton came under fire after he made comments about Aluko and another pundit, Lucy Ward, as part of a sexist tirade.
The former Manchester City and Newcastle star called the stars "the Fred and Rose West of football", referring to two of Britain's worst serial killers.
Over two decades, Fred and Rose West abducted, tortured, raped and murdered numerous young women.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, Barton posted in January 2024: "How is she even talking about Men's football. She can't even kick a ball properly.
"Your coverage of the game EFC last night, took it to a new low.
"Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, the Fred and Rose West of football commentary."
Celebrities like Piers Morgan, Laura Woods and Bianca Westwood were quick to call out the comments on social media.
ITV Sport also addressed Barton, saying in a statement: "For Joey Barton, an ex-professional player with a significant social media presence, to target two of our pundits, Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, with such vindictive remarks based on gender and to involve the names of serial killers in doing so is clearly contemptible and shameful on his part.
"Football is for everyone."