Rod Liddle, author, journalist, commentator, former editor of the BBC Radio Four 'Today' programme but best known in this country for being the guy who left his wife for a young one, came under fire in the UK this morning for mocking the women's World Cup and women's football generally.
Liddle, a former communist who now aligns with political right wing on cultural issues (although he doesn't wear the term 'right-wing'), has developed a reputation as a 'contrarian' and was accused of racism by authors such as Will Self following the publication of his book last year 'Selfish Whining Monkeys'. In Liddle's defence, it should be noted that the term 'monkeys' was used in the title of the book in a non-racial context and the racism accusation related to the content rather than the title (not that that is a whole lot better).
Today, he ridiculed the fare on offer in the women's World Cup. The article is nothing special. Just the usual stale cliches you've heard one thousand times before. He reserved particular scorn for the goalkeepers.
Whenever the players muster up enough power to take a shot, the ball goes in the net because the goalkeepers are uniformly useless. I do not relish saying this but it did occur, as I watched England’s women succumb to France, that almost any Sunday league side in the country could beat both teams with ease, assuming the Sunday league club side consisted of men.
Liddle claimed the women's World Cup was only promoted on the basis of 'political correctness' (a term he rather overuses) and that positing a false equivalence with the men's game is 'terribly patronising'.
Pleasingly, the reaction to the article has been uniformly negative.
Well Rod Liddle is a prick of the highest order. A moaning cock who can't say anything positive about anything. Utter bellend.
— Cormac O'Malley (@cormacpro) June 14, 2015
Guess what! Rod Liddle is slagging off women's World Cup in the Sunday Times. Won't link as it's 10 mins you'll never get back — Ian Prior (@ianprior) June 14, 2015
Was a shame to see Rod Liddle today buy into the 'lad' nonsense, and lay into the #FIFAWWC. He must be watching a different tournament to me
— Andrew (@RooKnight) June 14, 2015
Rod Liddle slagging off the Women's World Cup in the Sunday Times. I'm not surprised, sadly #WWC2015
— Dan Crawford (@dancrawford85) June 14, 2015
