To be depressed about the reaction to SPotY

[Whatafustercluck]

Never before has there been such an apparent controversy over how 'worthy' or not a winner is. And despite all of Mary Earp's sporting success, it's her dress that both men and women are focused on. I feel like this year's award has unearthed Darwin's missing link.

People may disagree that she.was the most deserving and are entitled to their opinion. But it was a public vote and the majority voted for her. It's the double standards and inconsistency of (mostly male) arguments that gets to me. Irritated because two female footballers have won it two years in a row, yet they were silent when two male cyclists won it two years in a row.

It doesn't feel like we've progressed very much in several decades does it? Women may finally be getting the recognition they deserve, but they're still held to higher standards and expectations than men, and their 'worthiness' credentials picked and pored over in a way that simply doesn't exist for men.

Much of what you're saying is rather selective in the memory department.

For a start Katarina Johnson-Thompson was on the shortlist this year. Her male counterpart, Josh Kerr, who also won at the world championships (and very much her equal), was overlooked. In many ways, Katarina J-T had a better claim to the award than Mary Earps, so I think that some of the debate is reasonable.

"Never before has there been such an apparent controversy over how 'worthy' or not a winner is."

The worthiness of winners was very much discussed in past years. For example:

When Ryan Giggs won in 2009 in a year of not achieving much in the twilight of his career. Many thought that Jessica Ennis-Hill was more deserving, and said so.

And then, Greg Rusedski whose main achievement was losing in the final of the US Open. His win was much debated at the time.

Many more, besides. See the years that Mo Farah, Nigel Mansell, Zara Phillips and Damon Hill won. Their worthiness was much debated.

Literally every single year there are loads of people claiming that whoever wins didn't really deserve it and that somebody else should have won. It's about as far from a 'never before' scenario as it's possible to be.

As it happens I don't really think Earps should have been nominated. I tend to think that you should have to win something major within your sport to get on the shortlist, which would have prevent both Earps and Broad from being on the list this year. It's not really something to get too worked up over either way though, as it's ultimately a fairly meaningless award.

And the focus being the dress she wore? Many essentially slut-shaming a professional female athlete? Is that acceptable too? The whole thing seems to have brought out the knuckle draggers this year in a way I'd hoped we'd left behind.

I'm pretty sure every year there's a controversy over whether the winner should have won it, so I don't think there's any difference to usual there.

The comments of her outfit are obviously something that isn't likely to happen to a man, but that's because the choice of outfits for men for an award show are generally a suit, or a slightly different colour suit. Yes, she got a lot of comments because it was something a bit risque, but if Stuart Broad had come out wearing his boxers then he'd have had just as many comments ( or lets say a string vest if we want to stick with torso coverings).

Not an awards show, but men also get picked up on their fashion choices when they're a bit weird. Not formalwear but Lewis Hamilton gets the piss taken out of him constantly for his outlandish outfits, and the older ones among us will remember David Beckhams famous sarong.

The focus was on the dress she wore because it looked like she had hoiked her pants above her skirt, and it didn't look good. The rest of the dress without the pants would have been lovely, the pants were just really distracting and made it All About The Pants when it should have been focused on her achievements. The green dress she wore to the event last year was absolutely gorgeous and if she'd chosen to wear something like that again we wouldn't be talking about her pants instead.

And yes, men's outfits come under fire when they don't look great as well. Look at the acres of mostly negative coverage about the clothes of footballer Travis Kelce (Taylor Swift's boyfriend), the jeers at Kanye West's outfits or Harry Styles's rainbow dungarees at the Grammys.

People still take the p**s out of Liverpool players for wearing white suits at the 1996 FA Cup final, and that was nearly 30 years ago. And others have mentioned the likes of Beckham and Hamilton regularly being mocked (for want of a better term) for some of the things they've worn.

If people wear something unusual or quirky, people will comment on it, I'm not sure gender is the main factor, sam Smith has worn zome pretty questionable outfits for example

I've never heard of her and didn't watch the show but the thread on here about her dress had a big focus on looking at the double standards that mean a woman feels pressure to wear something so uncomfortable and revealing when the men don't. Which is a valid question to ask.

Saw very few posters criticising her for the sake of it but wanting to discuss that question.

What did KTJ do to trump her? Earps also won a major honor for her country, , The Finallisima, saving a penalty in the shootout to secure it, a minor honor in the Arnold Clark cup and being instrumental in getting to a final of a World Cup, and helping her club secure runner up in both the League and FA cup while also securing multiple personal achievements and breaking records, she has most clean sheets in the WC, most in the WSL season and most clean sheets in WSL of all time, while winning England POTY, WSL POTY, WSL TOTY, BBC women's footballer of the year, Sunday time sportswoman of the year, and doing outreach on how mental health had affected her and nearly stopped her playing football all together.

If a man wore a see through suit im pretty sure people would comment on that too...

KJT won one of the two major honours in her sport.

Finalissima is a glorified friendly as is the Arnold Clark cup, both are awarded ranking points on the basis of being friendlies by FIFA. Rachel Daly won the WSL Player of the Year and PFA Women's Player of the Year awards, and Sam Kerr won the FWA Player of the Year award. Given that the England POTY/BBC Womens POTY are both fan-voted, I'd consider them to have less relevance, particularly compared to the PFA one, which is voted for by the players. They are essentially popularity contests rather than serious awards.

I suspect the BBC didn't want to do it to stop a clean sweep of the main awards by one organisation but if there was to be a footballer on the shortlist, then Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, John Stones and Kyle Walker all had a much better claim than Earps, given their contributions to City winning a treble and probably adding the Club World Cup to that on Friday.

Joey Barton's comments were disgusting- what a pathetic, bitter little misogynist. These wonderful Top Trump card mock ups have made me feel a lot cheerier!

@2mummies1baby i love that!

Joey Barton is a sad little man. Desperately trying to get in the limelight because his own career failed miserably and he never achieved much himself. Grim twat.

Aphrodite89 · Yesterday 15:49

Literally every single year there are loads of people claiming that whoever wins didn't really deserve it and that somebody else should have won.

Yes, that's true. The only time I was ever bothered was when it was fixed for the Queen's granddaughter.

GoodnightJude1 · Today 06:01

Joey Barton is a sad little man. Desperately trying to get in the limelight because his own career failed miserably and he never achieved much himself. Grim twat.

Yes, he's an objectionable little gobshite. How many times did he play for England? Come to that, how many times has Mary Earps been in jail for violence?

Spoty is a popularity contest once the shortlist is decided. She was probably the biggest household name of the lot. Golf, cricket, athletics, horse racing and tennis have their fan bases, but Womans Football has been very big this year.

Course they would

I didn't even know what outfit she wore. I've had a look now. Meh

Exactly. I'm not sure the two odious little twerps Joey Barton or Puers Morgan understand the concept of ' Sports Personality' or ' audience vote'. If they think the BBC for no apparent reason rigged the vote, they can complain to OFCOM.

I dunno. Storm in a teacup I think. Complainers gets exposure, spoty proves it’s still relevant and makes the news, bbc loves the debate, Mary gets lots of positive coverage and publicity . Piers gets content for the next day or two as do millions of phone ins and multiple podcasts discussing it.
it’s a massive win for everyone isn’t it?
( cynical take I know but I think almost every thing is contrived these days and basically just content )

worse thing to happen is for spoty of the year to be announced and literally no one cares.

@sashagabadon you are right!