Being in a conversation with Eni Aluko is like being in a Christopher Nolan movie: concepts of space and time are subverted, stretched, distorted. When she speaks, she does so in a markedly measured and eloquent manner; it feels like you’re settling in for a TED Talk. But then, before you know it, half an hour has gone by. And when your colleague comes back with the transcript, you see there’s sweat on his brow, so you check how many words you’ve ended up with: 4,063. And you want to print them all, but the art director points out that this would take up 20 pages and you need to rein it in.
Instead, you end up with abridged Aluko, which is actually rather potent because it’s like an interview highlights reel. Here, for example, are her thoughts on why more players should consider a career in the boardroom after they retire. “A lot of owners are very successful businesspeople but don’t necessarily understand the business of football, the economics of football, the fans,” she says. “As a former player, that is just the norm for me, so I’m very interested in advising owners on how to operate – but also one day, hopefully, being an owner myself.
“That’s the missing piece of professional football: not enough players have a voice at the executive level. So if you don’t want to get into coaching, look at that executive side of the game. I’m very glad to be in a position where I can continue to develop that, but I’d love to see more African ownership come into the Premier League and Europe.”
Aluko was thinking about life after football from the get-go. Like the Women’s Champions League, this summer’s Women’s World Cup has helped to further raise the profile of the female game, but it was a very different story when Aluko was 18 – and studying Law at Brunel University while also juggling a football career, first with Charlton Athletic and then Chelsea. “It was very important for me to go to university and have a plan B because women’s football wasn’t a professional career at that point,” she says. “I wasn’t raving like all my friends: I was in the gym, in the library, training – rest and repeat. It was difficult balancing the two, but it’s really important for players to remember there’s a whole life post-career that you can invest in when you’re playing.”
And Aluko wasted no time in swapping kit for suit when she retired, being announced as the sporting director for Aston Villa’s women’s team a week after she hung up her boots. Before that, she even found time to complete UEFA’s Executive Master for International Players. “That role was a great learning curve for me, but even more difficult because Covid hit pretty much two months into the job,” she says. “So everything I learnt on the course had kind of… not gone out the window but, you know, there was no coronavirus module. So I had to learn on the job: game cancellations, Covid testing and all the governance around returning to play. But I’m really grateful for that because it set me up for my next role as sporting director at Angel City, which was a huge undertaking.”
That second job came about in 2021, with Aluko joining the Los Angeles-based women’s team that has a group of owners helmed by actor Natalie Portman. “They asked me to come in and head up the FC part of Angel City FC,” says Aluko. “That was difficult because in America there is much more focus on the brand and entertainment, so I had to really think about what the product on the pitch would look like. LA is a very diverse and inclusive place, so we brought in players and coaches from every continent. For what they call an expansion team, we did very well to just about miss the play-offs – and again, it was another brilliant experience for me to continue to grow as an executive.”
Aluko stepped down from the role at the beginning of 2023 and has since been primarily engaged in another of her post-football vocations: punditry. She has provided insight and analysis across various broadcasters and competitions, including both the Champions League and Women’s Champions League for BT Sport. “I made my Match of the Day debut back in 2014 and realised that I really liked it,” she says. “It was an opportunity to show that females who have watched football since they were five know as much about football as anybody else. The difference is that I’m a woman – that is literally the only difference.
“You now see many more women in broadcasting for the men’s game. We have a little way to go – there’s still a lot of misogyny around it – but we’ve got to keep pushing, keep showing up and keep being a voice in the game. For me now, it’s also really cool to be able to bring in that business side, things like: ‘What could the Chelsea owner be thinking by doing that?’”
It’s the Blues that Aluko holds dearest from a playing career that also included time in the US, a season and a half at Juventus and two stints with home-town club Birmingham City (not to mention 102 England caps). “Chelsea is very much my team; I played for them for seven years and I’m a club ambassador now. Hopefully, in the next five years Chelsea can use the experience of playing in the Champions League and getting so close to eventually win. You’ve seen that with Manchester City men, right?”
Aluko got close herself during her playing career. “Playing for Chelsea and Juventus in the Champions League, with the prestige of the tournament, was incredible. I was lucky enough to play in the semi-finals of the Champions League [in 2018], but Wolfsburg beat us.
“What you’re seeing recently is sell-out crowds; it’s as exciting as going to the men’s game. I’m glad that they’ve brought group stages in; now I’d love to see the Conference League and Europa League coming into the women’s game. Because, across Europe, that means teams that can’t necessarily win the league are going to keep pushing for fourth, fifth, sixth place, as we see in the Premier League. So hopefully that’s the next progression.”
We end our conversation by wondering whether much of the content that’s been covered should have been up for discussion in the first place. Should there still be merit in mentioning that Aluko was the first female Match of the Day pundit? Should it be considered a surprise that top-level women’s football is getting big crowds?
“At the end of the day, you want women’s football to just be judged as great football, right? You want female broadcasters to just be judged as great broadcasters, without having a gender conversation the whole time. But the reality is that people get very lazy and so, rather than viewing it objectively, their bias doesn’t allow them to see past our gender. So, if I make a mistake on screen, I am judged more harshly than if a man made the same mistake. I don’t like it, but it’s the reality.
“Now, it’s not up to me to change that. A lot of men need to change their perspective on women giving them information about football. I’m not going to waste my time trying to educate men who frankly, sometimes, feel a little intimidated by a woman who knows more than them, or a little jealous because they want to be in that situation themselves. It gets a little exhausting, but it’s not going to change what I do.”
Nor would we want it to.
Being in a conversation with Eni Aluko is like being in a Christopher Nolan movie: concepts of space and time are subverted, stretched, distorted. When she speaks, she does so in a markedly measured and eloquent manner; it feels like you’re settling in for a TED Talk. But then, before you know it, half an hour has gone by. And when your colleague comes back with the transcript, you see there’s sweat on his brow, so you check how many words you’ve ended up with: 4,063. And you want to print them all, but the art director points out that this would take up 20 pages and you need to rein it in.
Instead, you end up with abridged Aluko, which is actually rather potent because it’s like an interview highlights reel. Here, for example, are her thoughts on why more players should consider a career in the boardroom after they retire. “A lot of owners are very successful businesspeople but don’t necessarily understand the business of football, the economics of football, the fans,” she says. “As a former player, that is just the norm for me, so I’m very interested in advising owners on how to operate – but also one day, hopefully, being an owner myself.
“That’s the missing piece of professional football: not enough players have a voice at the executive level. So if you don’t want to get into coaching, look at that executive side of the game. I’m very glad to be in a position where I can continue to develop that, but I’d love to see more African ownership come into the Premier League and Europe.”
Aluko was thinking about life after football from the get-go. Like the Women’s Champions League, this summer’s Women’s World Cup has helped to further raise the profile of the female game, but it was a very different story when Aluko was 18 – and studying Law at Brunel University while also juggling a football career, first with Charlton Athletic and then Chelsea. “It was very important for me to go to university and have a plan B because women’s football wasn’t a professional career at that point,” she says. “I wasn’t raving like all my friends: I was in the gym, in the library, training – rest and repeat. It was difficult balancing the two, but it’s really important for players to remember there’s a whole life post-career that you can invest in when you’re playing.”
And Aluko wasted no time in swapping kit for suit when she retired, being announced as the sporting director for Aston Villa’s women’s team a week after she hung up her boots. Before that, she even found time to complete UEFA’s Executive Master for International Players. “That role was a great learning curve for me, but even more difficult because Covid hit pretty much two months into the job,” she says. “So everything I learnt on the course had kind of… not gone out the window but, you know, there was no coronavirus module. So I had to learn on the job: game cancellations, Covid testing and all the governance around returning to play. But I’m really grateful for that because it set me up for my next role as sporting director at Angel City, which was a huge undertaking.”
That second job came about in 2021, with Aluko joining the Los Angeles-based women’s team that has a group of owners helmed by actor Natalie Portman. “They asked me to come in and head up the FC part of Angel City FC,” says Aluko. “That was difficult because in America there is much more focus on the brand and entertainment, so I had to really think about what the product on the pitch would look like. LA is a very diverse and inclusive place, so we brought in players and coaches from every continent. For what they call an expansion team, we did very well to just about miss the play-offs – and again, it was another brilliant experience for me to continue to grow as an executive.”
Aluko stepped down from the role at the beginning of 2023 and has since been primarily engaged in another of her post-football vocations: punditry. She has provided insight and analysis across various broadcasters and competitions, including both the Champions League and Women’s Champions League for BT Sport. “I made my Match of the Day debut back in 2014 and realised that I really liked it,” she says. “It was an opportunity to show that females who have watched football since they were five know as much about football as anybody else. The difference is that I’m a woman – that is literally the only difference.
“You now see many more women in broadcasting for the men’s game. We have a little way to go – there’s still a lot of misogyny around it – but we’ve got to keep pushing, keep showing up and keep being a voice in the game. For me now, it’s also really cool to be able to bring in that business side, things like: ‘What could the Chelsea owner be thinking by doing that?’”
It’s the Blues that Aluko holds dearest from a playing career that also included time in the US, a season and a half at Juventus and two stints with home-town club Birmingham City (not to mention 102 England caps). “Chelsea is very much my team; I played for them for seven years and I’m a club ambassador now. Hopefully, in the next five years Chelsea can use the experience of playing in the Champions League and getting so close to eventually win. You’ve seen that with Manchester City men, right?”
Aluko got close herself during her playing career. “Playing for Chelsea and Juventus in the Champions League, with the prestige of the tournament, was incredible. I was lucky enough to play in the semi-finals of the Champions League [in 2018], but Wolfsburg beat us.
“What you’re seeing recently is sell-out crowds; it’s as exciting as going to the men’s game. I’m glad that they’ve brought group stages in; now I’d love to see the Conference League and Europa League coming into the women’s game. Because, across Europe, that means teams that can’t necessarily win the league are going to keep pushing for fourth, fifth, sixth place, as we see in the Premier League. So hopefully that’s the next progression.”
We end our conversation by wondering whether much of the content that’s been covered should have been up for discussion in the first place. Should there still be merit in mentioning that Aluko was the first female Match of the Day pundit? Should it be considered a surprise that top-level women’s football is getting big crowds?
“At the end of the day, you want women’s football to just be judged as great football, right? You want female broadcasters to just be judged as great broadcasters, without having a gender conversation the whole time. But the reality is that people get very lazy and so, rather than viewing it objectively, their bias doesn’t allow them to see past our gender. So, if I make a mistake on screen, I am judged more harshly than if a man made the same mistake. I don’t like it, but it’s the reality.
“Now, it’s not up to me to change that. A lot of men need to change their perspective on women giving them information about football. I’m not going to waste my time trying to educate men who frankly, sometimes, feel a little intimidated by a woman who knows more than them, or a little jealous because they want to be in that situation themselves. It gets a little exhausting, but it’s not going to change what I do.”
Nor would we want it to.
Being in a conversation with Eni Aluko is like being in a Christopher Nolan movie: concepts of space and time are subverted, stretched, distorted. When she speaks, she does so in a markedly measured and eloquent manner; it feels like you’re settling in for a TED Talk. But then, before you know it, half an hour has gone by. And when your colleague comes back with the transcript, you see there’s sweat on his brow, so you check how many words you’ve ended up with: 4,063. And you want to print them all, but the art director points out that this would take up 20 pages and you need to rein it in.
Instead, you end up with abridged Aluko, which is actually rather potent because it’s like an interview highlights reel. Here, for example, are her thoughts on why more players should consider a career in the boardroom after they retire. “A lot of owners are very successful businesspeople but don’t necessarily understand the business of football, the economics of football, the fans,” she says. “As a former player, that is just the norm for me, so I’m very interested in advising owners on how to operate – but also one day, hopefully, being an owner myself.
“That’s the missing piece of professional football: not enough players have a voice at the executive level. So if you don’t want to get into coaching, look at that executive side of the game. I’m very glad to be in a position where I can continue to develop that, but I’d love to see more African ownership come into the Premier League and Europe.”
Aluko was thinking about life after football from the get-go. Like the Women’s Champions League, this summer’s Women’s World Cup has helped to further raise the profile of the female game, but it was a very different story when Aluko was 18 – and studying Law at Brunel University while also juggling a football career, first with Charlton Athletic and then Chelsea. “It was very important for me to go to university and have a plan B because women’s football wasn’t a professional career at that point,” she says. “I wasn’t raving like all my friends: I was in the gym, in the library, training – rest and repeat. It was difficult balancing the two, but it’s really important for players to remember there’s a whole life post-career that you can invest in when you’re playing.”
And Aluko wasted no time in swapping kit for suit when she retired, being announced as the sporting director for Aston Villa’s women’s team a week after she hung up her boots. Before that, she even found time to complete UEFA’s Executive Master for International Players. “That role was a great learning curve for me, but even more difficult because Covid hit pretty much two months into the job,” she says. “So everything I learnt on the course had kind of… not gone out the window but, you know, there was no coronavirus module. So I had to learn on the job: game cancellations, Covid testing and all the governance around returning to play. But I’m really grateful for that because it set me up for my next role as sporting director at Angel City, which was a huge undertaking.”
That second job came about in 2021, with Aluko joining the Los Angeles-based women’s team that has a group of owners helmed by actor Natalie Portman. “They asked me to come in and head up the FC part of Angel City FC,” says Aluko. “That was difficult because in America there is much more focus on the brand and entertainment, so I had to really think about what the product on the pitch would look like. LA is a very diverse and inclusive place, so we brought in players and coaches from every continent. For what they call an expansion team, we did very well to just about miss the play-offs – and again, it was another brilliant experience for me to continue to grow as an executive.”
Aluko stepped down from the role at the beginning of 2023 and has since been primarily engaged in another of her post-football vocations: punditry. She has provided insight and analysis across various broadcasters and competitions, including both the Champions League and Women’s Champions League for BT Sport. “I made my Match of the Day debut back in 2014 and realised that I really liked it,” she says. “It was an opportunity to show that females who have watched football since they were five know as much about football as anybody else. The difference is that I’m a woman – that is literally the only difference.
“You now see many more women in broadcasting for the men’s game. We have a little way to go – there’s still a lot of misogyny around it – but we’ve got to keep pushing, keep showing up and keep being a voice in the game. For me now, it’s also really cool to be able to bring in that business side, things like: ‘What could the Chelsea owner be thinking by doing that?’”
It’s the Blues that Aluko holds dearest from a playing career that also included time in the US, a season and a half at Juventus and two stints with home-town club Birmingham City (not to mention 102 England caps). “Chelsea is very much my team; I played for them for seven years and I’m a club ambassador now. Hopefully, in the next five years Chelsea can use the experience of playing in the Champions League and getting so close to eventually win. You’ve seen that with Manchester City men, right?”
Aluko got close herself during her playing career. “Playing for Chelsea and Juventus in the Champions League, with the prestige of the tournament, was incredible. I was lucky enough to play in the semi-finals of the Champions League [in 2018], but Wolfsburg beat us.
“What you’re seeing recently is sell-out crowds; it’s as exciting as going to the men’s game. I’m glad that they’ve brought group stages in; now I’d love to see the Conference League and Europa League coming into the women’s game. Because, across Europe, that means teams that can’t necessarily win the league are going to keep pushing for fourth, fifth, sixth place, as we see in the Premier League. So hopefully that’s the next progression.”
We end our conversation by wondering whether much of the content that’s been covered should have been up for discussion in the first place. Should there still be merit in mentioning that Aluko was the first female Match of the Day pundit? Should it be considered a surprise that top-level women’s football is getting big crowds?
“At the end of the day, you want women’s football to just be judged as great football, right? You want female broadcasters to just be judged as great broadcasters, without having a gender conversation the whole time. But the reality is that people get very lazy and so, rather than viewing it objectively, their bias doesn’t allow them to see past our gender. So, if I make a mistake on screen, I am judged more harshly than if a man made the same mistake. I don’t like it, but it’s the reality.
“Now, it’s not up to me to change that. A lot of men need to change their perspective on women giving them information about football. I’m not going to waste my time trying to educate men who frankly, sometimes, feel a little intimidated by a woman who knows more than them, or a little jealous because they want to be in that situation themselves. It gets a little exhausting, but it’s not going to change what I do.”
Nor would we want it to.
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