England captain Leah Williamson on diversity in the squad & playing in Arsenal's Emirates' stadium

[@celtic9333]

Leahs not only a great footballer but a great person shes trying her best to do alot for womens football

[@pimentotv7917]

never forget the 4 L's of life: Live Love Laugh Leah Williamson 🥰

[@yo_boo697]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@JimmySands-pd7xt]

🤢

[@charles_preston]

the 4 L's are worthless... without the 1 G. (Hint: rhymes with 'sod').

[@ALS1983]

Leah is such a phenomenal woman. Such an inspiration, well spoken and beautiful inside and out

[@LeornianCyng]

Leah is a real role model and what a captain / leader should be, making the world a better place for everyone. She’s classy, intelligent, articulate and extremely empathetic. Not only that but she’s one of the best players male or female in the world today. There isn’t really anyone that can do what she does in the 11-a-side game. She’s a phenomenal musician and author too. Arsenal will have the third biggest stadium in the world in women’s side of the game and that is incredible. Football is a sport for everyone and we need clubs and countries to ensure that abled bodied and disabled players no matter the discipline get equipment that’s suited to each group, equal pay, funding, working conditions, rights, visibility, promotion and infrastructure. It should be enshrined in law.

[@rayphillips6060]

Leah is an Arsenal legend and apparently one of the nicest people at the club, along with Beth Mead and Lessi Russo

[@marshallsdocumentariesandr6439]

Leah is someone that would be successful at anything she tried in life. Intelligent, eloquent, insightful, witty......that woman has it all.....easy to see why she is our captain. All love to Leah. ❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍

[@kenspedding4594]

Get a life you obsessed 🤡🤡🤡🤡

[@kenspedding4594]

Except a footballer as she’s 💩💩💩💩 but all the simpletons go all giggly over her fingers

[@kenspedding4594]

Apart from football as she’s 💩💩💩💩

[@BedZzledbbg]

@@kenspedding4594it’s funny how you call them obsessed when you have 10 comments just of you being mad

[@GaryWillis-u2x]

Leha is so humble I think she doesn't believe how good she is not only as a player but as person keep up the good work leha no6 Williamson arsenal legend England captain and national sweetheart

[@iansilverlight4540]

30:13 Exactly Leah... Family.. Love.. the People who matter in Life... not the professional "life"..🍀🌹

[@philiplaycock8944]

Well done Leah Williamson! women’s football is definitely on an upward trajectory and rightly so . The prejudice surrounding the women’s game is unnecessary and outdated. Leah clearly has a passion and good understanding of what is required to push the game onwards and upwards! 👍

[@Bria_001]

Absolute class.

[@c0f3324]

Leah inspiration to womens football, She's out spoken about it which we need and I hope she does well after football.

[@alicamgibbs1867]

The crowds will come. Arsenal women have the greatest following anywhere.🥰⚽

[@franciscoarzaga4384]

Thank you

[@YuvrajShinde-i1w]

Great football player and great women..

[@edcleverley9333]

Young people from less affluent families getting to training / matches isn't just in women's football. A friend's son was at Swindon Town's youth academy, they had to make their own way to games. Got a game in Plymouth, 3 hours away, it's up to the parents to get them there. I assumed there'd be a minibus

[@ingridpett9324]

I understand what you mean. However the womens game is behind the men's right the way across the board. In terms of what you just said it may be more of a deprivation point of view. So if you were to be a girl and in a deprived area that's a double whammy.

[@edcleverley9333]

@@ingridpett9324 Also, parents are more willing to invest in their son's travel if they think they could get a return on that investment. In England there's probably under 300 professional female players, maybe 100 of those are from overseas. Of the 200 remaining I would guess the majority earn under £40,000 a year. It's not an investment that will yield a great return, if any. That makes it a fairly middle class sport, like horse riding (Millie Bright), ballet classes (Beth Mead) or gymnastics (Leah Williamson)

[@yasss666]

@@edcleverley9333I’m from the states and I know that over here it’s about $1k a year to put your kid through a competitive club/academy but I was wondering if in Europe players that go through the Arsenal Academy like Leah did have to pay dues?

[@pyramid_iremide]

She actually made this exact point around 8:00 - 8:30. Adding to your point and her, football is more of a middle class sport for women, so more working class girls miss out. Especially when you consider that some teams don't have women's teams. Literally yesterday, it came out that Thornaby scraped their entire girls and women's teams. It is not rare for women and girls' teams to receive way less support so the men's teams can get support. Interestingly enough, multiple Lionesses have talked about the need for more investment and programs for working class kids to be able to access sports.

[@MickLeadham]

Love ❤ you and what you do , so good and so listened to ❤ so honest and beautiful

[@alansmithee8831]

You can tell Leah's mum was a manager from the confidence in speaking, decision making and taking authority. You can also see that she knows how to answer without, as she admitted, answering the question. I recently commented on a video for a Twila Kilgore press conference in USA that they would be shocked at how Emma Hayes would use distraction rather than straight answers. Strange that the success at the Euros came with Sarina Wiegman, who the team described as blunt and to the point, telling what she expected succinctly, not debating it. Something for the Oxford Union to consider?

[@rosevrillavigne]

I Loved leah Williamson!!! 😍😍😍

[@errolmac67]

Very impressive person

[@alexhaynes7220]

Women’s sport is welcoming

[@donaldbarber5160]

Brilliant.

[@Vonepohh771x]

She makes a great point in the schedules being incredibly overcrowded in both men’s and women’s football but in women’s there just adding and adding and adding and adding without making any changes or adaptations in order to be able to add those things safely and effectively

[@kenspedding4594]

Strange in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s their used to be 42 league matches plus some Cup games would go to 3rd replay and the pitches were mud baths, moan moan moan you want everything your way, just deal with it you moaner, love the way she’s exercising her fingers for later.

[@ZimbaZumba]

If people think women are playing a sport as well as it is physically possible for a woman to do so, then people will watch them.

[@vaishaliraghav6804]

Leah ❤

[@cathyg7767]

Diversity of course is important, but winning is more important. It must always be about quality and not dangerous quotas.

[@David-ep5om]

Diversity is not important. It's a disgusting cancer that destroys anything it touches. Stop repeating brainwashing slogans.

[@BedZzledbbg]

The point is that poc don’t have the same opportunities as white players to become professionals because of where they live. It’s not hard to understand.

[@Delboy0]

Did you not see the women's Olympic final between USA and Brazil both teams had majority black players. Diversity would make the women's team much stronger it has for the men's team. The FA have admitted mistakes in the professionalisation of the women's game when they shut down schools of excellences for girls in the big diverse cities and built them in rural white areas and this one decision turned women's football into a white middle class game because it means only the girls who families had to the money to travel to these elite schools got the coaching to be professionals and this had led to the whitening of the women's game, when 10 or 15 years ago when it was semi-professional there where so many black English players.

[@skibrat]

Canada's women's team is super diverse. Study how they do it.

[@skibrat]

Pick Bev Priestmans brain.

[@pambamtymam]

So is the US team, finally.

[@hus390]

⁠​⁠@@pambamtymam black people are athletically gifted. When they get chances, they will grab it. Diversity of races is not important for me when it comes to sports. Canada has recent first generation citizens who their parents immigrated from Haiti and they are rolling it.

[@sebluketravis2438]

Fit her

[@LottoSense-h5m]

Depends on how diversity is enforced, and typically, it is not good in football or any other sports. You play on merit and skill, and not on your sexuality and ethnicity.

[@StickAroundBennett]

Quality of Womens football is not as good as men. The advocates for equality need to wake up. It is not equal and never should be. Full stop.

[@dez3540]

@@StickAroundBennett You really need to stop living in the past.

[@meIevolence]

Okay so what about the kids who have the skill but don’t have the opportunities of their white teammates? Diversity is about equal opportunities, not whatever you think it is.

[@luisae6917]

@@meIevolenceyep!

[@atxfinest20]

​@@meIevolencediversity has nothing to do with equal opportunity.

[@alexhaynes7220]

Actually Scotland is a part of and in England so the national Anthem is there to sing unless they leave

[@meIevolence]

stop it

[@meIevolence]

england ≠ scotland

[@MegzGMissMeganne]

The dumbest comment on the internet

[@alanlee1701]

I"m trying to understand what's she's talking about but nothing makes sense.

[@TracySunshineStott]

Icon

[@johnandrews8590]

Who cares about diversity? PICK THE BEST PLAYERS.

[@johnandrews8590]

@@correcttakes The best what?

[@Yanancien]

Exactly, if you are good at football you gonna play. If not you're out simple as that. This is not a clown show

[@sufiansesay1192]

What if the best prospects and talents in London like Leah said; because of their nearest centre of excellence is too far, we end up losing track their progress

[@BedZzledbbg]

Obviously you didn’t understand her point

[@johnandrews8590]

@@BedZzledbbg Obviously you didn't understand mine.

[@RP_W3ST]

England women aren’t diverse how many people of colour play for the lionesses 1 ? Or even at Arsenal 0

[@David-ep5om]

Good.

[@RP_W3ST]

@@David-ep5om why is that good? We need more people of colour representing England women and in women’s pro football

[@David-ep5om]

@@RP_W3ST You're Nigerian and you want to force non whites into England's women's team? Tell me about your campaign to force whites into Nigeria's football teams.

[@BedZzledbbg]

@@David-ep5omYou don’t have to be white to be English, stop with the trolling, god.

[@meganmclarenn]

Jess carter, Lauren James, Jess Naz, Kiara Keating 😊

[@hus390]

At (5:50) 🤨 like seriously!😧 that woman said she didn’t saw someone look like her so it’s why she didn’t go professional? WTF? Imagine being this insane! Or maybe you were not good enough to be a pro!

[@StickAroundBennett]

The quality of student is appalling. God help us

[@avahouse4425]

how do you mean

[@Natalyatta]

I'm all for taking care of the old heritage but god damn all I could think about is how rotten & old the décor, the flooring, the walls & furnishing is! I mean there are cracks for god's sake, the floor is ugly looking and the seat need upholstery repairs

[@alexhaynes7220]

So they r not the same then r they

[@Joeonline26]

Same tired, predictable, neoliberal diveristy nonsense

[@BedZzledbbg]

Sounds like you just didn’t understand what she was saying, typical ignorant right winger.

[@Joeonline26]

@@BedZzledbbg I understood perfectly what she was saying, I've heard it all before. And I'm not a right winger. I totally reject the outdated left-right continuum. Nice try though

[@BedZzledbbg]

@@Joeonline26 Oh sorry I thought we were just using whatever buzzword came to the top of our heads like your first comment?

[@Joeonline26]

@@BedZzledbbg My comment was an accurate description of the cultural neoliberal outlook of most modern institutions. It is the logical endpoint of the culturally liberal model formed by John Locke centuries ago. But you wouldn't know any of that. Your comment was simply a lazy mischaracterization of my position. Your tiny brain thought, "oh, he's rejecting the secular liberal cultural hegemony, therefore he must be conservative". What a silly person you are.

[@alexhaynes7220]

Say you understand my point not hopefully