#Shellshocked (Editor’s Letter)

Jen O’Neill opens on the Eniola Aluko affair and says she has agonised over how to cover it, concluding readers already know the facts. Her own position she states plainly: the utmost admiration for Aluko and Lianne Sanderson, dismay at the FA’s representatives, and hope that something better in governance and player welfare comes out of a mess that has damaged the feel-good factor around the Lionesses. On the FA’s restructuring of the elite leagues into a fully professional top flight, her head understands the logic and her heart hates it – she wonders whether the clubs and players who bought into the current WSL deserved more time, and applauds fans questioning it. She also takes FIFA to task over an awards night that barely made room for women.