Former Nottingham Forest striker Stan Collymore has waded into the debate surrounding Karen Carney’s comments about Leeds United and the Elland Road club’s subsequence response on Twitter.
Former England Women’s international Carney, who won 144 caps for her country, said during Amazon Prime Sport’s coverage of Leeds’ 5-0 win at West Brom that Marcelo Bielsa’s side benefited from the coronavirus break in March to win the Championship title earlier this year.
Leeds responded on Twitter by poking fun at Carney’s comments, provoking a backlash from some fans who felt that it would encourage online abuse to be directed at her.
Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani, replying to a tweet which said Leeds should be “ashamed” of their actions, wrote: “I take the responsibility of the club tweet.
“I consider that comment [from Carney] completely unnecessary and disrespectful to our club and particularly to the fantastic hard work of our players and coaches whom were understanding on the pitch for the last two Championship seasons by all stats.”
In a serious of tweets, Collymore suggested Leeds in the wrong.
He wrote: “Best official club accounts are the ones who don't need to engage in “bantz” aimed at 16 year olds. Team sheets, game analysis, fan engagement (community projects), signings and clear information. There are plenty of banter blogs and sites, who do it better than clubs anyway!"
Then, in reply to questions on the issue, Collymore added: “A football club's job is to play football. That's it. A pundit's job is to give opinions (hopefully based on some sort of intelligent prep). That's it. If clubs feel the need to comment on punditry, then that club is rather thin skinned. Whichever club it is.
“Personally I'm super happy to have my work scrutinised but there should be an accepted standard of punditry like other parts of the industry. As for "sticking to facts", much of punditry is opinion based and subjective so [person shrugging emoji].”
Collymore than added: "Pundits get held to account by fans on social media, whichever medium they are on ( TV, radio, podcast, blog, etc) Yet I don't know the name of one person who is behind a club feed. Where's their qualifications? Expertise? Journo experience? Or are they cheap and partisan?"
