Eni Aluko demands apologies after ‘fake quotes’ go viral on social media

Eni Aluko demands apologies from a number of football accounts after posts including ‘fake quotes’ go viral on social media.

The 37 year old ITV pundit is threatening them with legal action with quotes claiming her to have said women should play in the Premier League.

The post that was shared across social media accounts, doing the rounds with many copying and posting the quote on their own page.

When Twitter and Facebook users challenged them in the comments saying they haven’t seen the quotes anywhere and that it was likely to be made up, the response from the pages was that they just saw it elsewhere, so copied and posted it on their own page.

You’ve only got to type the quote into Facebook and Twitter search and see all the pages that have posted it, and now being forced to apologise to Eni Aluko.

Now this is a case of serious misinformation, spread about to make her look bad and more controversial than she already.

The quote read: ‘Eni Aluko on women’s football: The ladies have proven they are more than equal to the men’s game.

‘You just have to look at our amazing Lionesses, they put the men’s team to shame. Our girls should be given a chance in the men’s Premier League, they would easily hold their own.’

She tagged three accounts, @FootballFunnnys, @fsmofficialTW and @BeWarmers, with all three now saying sorry for spreading fake quotes.

BeWarmers wrote on Instagram: ‘Apologies to Eniola Aluko as we misquoted her during the week with a fake quote, seen online. Keep up the good work in the football world’.

FootballSoccerMeme issued their own statement, reading: ‘Big apologies to Eniola Aluko as we misquoted her during the week with a fake quote that went viral, seen on numerous other pages. Keep up the good work in the football world’.

FSM wrote: ‘We apologise, immediately deleted @EniAlu’.

FootballFunnnys said: ‘Hi @EniAlu we’re really sorry. Have immediately deleted the offending post’.

Aluko reposted FootballFunnnys apology: ‘I appreciate the public apology. Big lesson for the fans in the comments with one brain cell between them disparaging my name – don’t get excited. It usually ends in tears for fools who think they can get away with it’.

She also took aim at the @FootballFactly social media account.

‘@FootballFactly – you have nearly half a million followers and are dumb enough to post fake news/fake quotes. ‘This needs to be deleted immediately and replaced with a public apology to avoid legal action.’ The post remains on Football Factly’s X account, and a public apology is yet to be made on social media.

We’ve also seen the likes of Proper Football, Football Away Days, Football Home & Away, Absolute Football Banter, The True Red Devils and many others on Facebook also post this on their page.

Proper Football and Football Away Days have deleted theirs amid the threat from Eni Aluko, after initially going viral.

Eni Aluko has previously claimed ‘men’s football in this country is not safe for women’ online and in stadiums when speaking on a podcast.

‘I say it all the time,’ Aluko started to say on The Sports Agents podcast. ‘Men’s football in this country is still not a safe place for women.

‘Whether you’re the wife of an average football fan who loves football or you’re me who works in professional broadcasting, it’s not a safe space. It’s not a safe space physically going to a stadium and it’s not a safe space on online.

‘So when we look at the next generation of young girls who are alive to football because of the Lionesses and who likely want to get into football, whether they play or work behind the scenes.

‘What would make them want to do that when there’s daily casual racism, sexism, misogyny toward the women at the top.

‘I just refuse to now to sit back and go “Oh, it’s part of the job,” I can’t do that anymore. For me, I’m talking to government, how are we going to create laws so that this is not so easy.’

It comes just months after she slammed Twitter for ‘allowing people to vomit their hatred unchecked’ after she was verbally attacked by Joey Barton, who called her and Lucy Ward ‘the Fred and Rose West of football commentary’ in a reference to the two infamous serial killers – with Alex Scott and Lioness Mary Earps also being targeted in his posts.

He also alleged that Aluko and her family used ‘dodgy money’ to pay for a lavish lifestyle, but Aluko has since received support from ITV – a broadcaster she’s a regular pundit on – and she revealed she’s taken legal action against Barton, and also claimed she left the country due to being ‘genuinely scared’ for her safety following his comments. Ex-keeper Paddy Kenny mocked her over this.

‘It’s scary how easy it is on social media to just attack women,’ she added. ‘Misogyny is not even a hate crime at this moment in time but there’s so much online.

‘Unfortunately football is a sort of access point for a lot of that. I think it’s the last bastion of what people consider to be a male only space.

‘It has been for a long time a space where men have been able to express themselves freely without the gaze of women and all of this stuff.

‘The reality is that football has always been for everyone and now women are becoming much more part of it but I feel the backlash is getting worse.’

Joey Barton doesn’t hold back in response to being charged by police over tweets about Eni Aluko