Simon Jordan has explained exactly what he said to Eni Aluko during an ad break after there was a lot of speculation over how their conversation went.
Aluko went on to talkSPORT's White & Jordan show yesterday (10 February), where they spoke about past comments she'd made about Ian Wright and not getting selected as a pundit for the Euro 2025 final.
While on air, Jordan told Aluko he thought what she was saying was 'steeped in a sense of entitlement' and 'the sheer weight of the entitlement that you seem to believe that you have would re-sink the Titanic'.
They kept talking through an ad-break and there has been a lot of speculation over what he said, with the Daily Mail getting in a lip reader to try and figure out what he said. But Jordan has since called that interpretation of what he said 'clueless' and explained what went on.
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He said: "What I said to Eni in the break was that you were foolish to go for Ian Wright. For whatever reason, he is a national treasure. You are silly to have done that and it is your own fault. You brought this on yourself."
In the actual on-air conversation Jordan had criticised Aluko's punditry, saying: "As far as expertise are concerned, when I listen to her as a pundit, the times I’ve listened to her, I don’t think that she is particularly enlightening, or illuminating, or engaging or charismatic, or sometimes comes across particularly likeable, but that’s my view and some people have the same view about me.
"And my view of punditry is, when I listen to a pundit, whoever that pundit might be, whether it’s male, female, black, white, yellow, green, it’s, ‘do I learn something, do they engage me, and do they merit my attention?’."
Aluko had replied by saying it was 'an opinion which we are all entitled to' and said she wouldn't be listening to views expressed over social media, but did put stock in the fact she kept getting hired for punditry roles.
"I listen to the professionals, I listen to the people who have hired me for the last 11 years around the world, the biggest broadcasters in the world," she replied.
"By default, if I’m working with the people who are considered the brilliant broadcasters, then if I’m in the same team as them, next to them, then by default I’m also considered a brilliant broadcaster."
Aluko said she'd been considered 'good enough for 11 years', and in 2014 was the first woman to go on Match of the Day as a pundit.
However, last year she said male pundits like Wright were getting too many opportunities, with her saying she thought he was a 'brilliant broadcaster' but thought he should be aware of the impact he was having in the women's game.
She had said: "I think we need to be conscious and we need to make sure that women are not being blocked from having a pathway into broadcasting in the women's game."
Aluko later apologised to Wright, saying she was 'trying to make a broader point about the limited opportunities for women in football', Wright said he could not accept the apology and just wanted to move on.
Joe Harker