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Eni Aluko blasts 'sexist and racist haters' after claiming Declan Rice theory was right
Eni Aluko was ridiculed for her Declan Rice to Arsenal theory involving Manchester City.
Football Digest: Fee piles 'pressure' on Rice ahead of Arsenal move
Eni Aluko has hit out at “racist” and “sexist” haters that lambasted the former Chelsea and England star for her theory on Declan Rice’s transfer saga. She claimed that Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta may have asked Pep Guardiola to submit a bid for the West Ham captain to force a response from the Gunners owners, before being criticised for her view on social media.
Aluko, who previously worked as a director of women’s football at Aston Villa before becoming sporting director at Angel City in Los Angeles and then director of recruitment at the NWSL club, gave an insight on how such transfers worked and claimed that Arteta may have called Guardiola to ask him to start a bidding war for Rice.
"I think there’s a lot of cat and mouse going on here," Aluko said on talkSPORT. "As a sporting director I used to do this a lot. I used to call up a club, a big club, and say, 'right can you put a bid in' and that would basically force my owner to put a higher bid in. I don’t think Manchester City actually want to sign Declan Rice, I think what’s going on is Arteta has picked up the phone to Pep and said 'listen, Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach, if you put a higher bid in, that will push my owner'.
"For speed and to get the deal done. West Ham obviously want a certain valuation and I don’t know why Arsenal are taking this incremental approach. It says to me that Man City coming in later on is going to help Arsenal, because the fans are going to get on it now. The fans are going to say 'hold on, if you let Declan Rice go to Man City when he was our number one target, that says a lot about Arsenal'. I used to do it all the time and it used to work."
“I don’t think #MCFC actually want Rice!”
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) June 27, 2023
“I think Arteta has asked Pep to put a bid in. It pushes the #AFC owners. I used to do it.”
Eni Aluko questions the intentions behind Man City’s £90m Declan Rice bid. ✍️ pic.twitter.com/oNpIksLQ7Y
Arsenal since upped their bid to £105million, which was enough to get City to back down as a full agreement taking Rice to the Emirates is reportedly imminent. Aluko was lambasted for her theory, however, going viral on social media as former players were among those to question Aluko - who has since hit back at her trolls.
She posted on Instagram: "I guess the 'token' 'clueless' 'braindead' pundit knew exactly what she was talking about on this one. Go figure." She then added on Twitter: "Interesting 24 hours in the transfer window. Congratulations Declan Rice on a big move to Arsenal. What a player, what a guy! Had the pleasure of meeting Declan “Jollof” Rice and happy to see he got the record transfer move he wanted. Big intent and ambition from Arsenal.
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"Safe to say I suspected Rice wasn’t going up the M6 to Manchester! I’ve had a lot of laughs on this today, it was very quiet from the pile on brigade – somehow a lot of haters went missing. Apologies are much quieter than disrespect.
"Disagreement is part of the job. But disagreement should never be used by people to be sexist, racist, misogynistic to women in football. It’s an absolute disgrace and I won’t ignore it for the benefit of a lot of men who project their own jealousy & insecurity spouting abuse.
"Women in football are not going away. Get used to it. We know our stuff, we speak from a place of professional insight and experience. Take it or leave it, agree, disagree but if you choose sexism, racism, misogyny to disagree, you ARE the problem and you’re exposing yourself.
"If you spend your time attacking women in football, you are exposing the fact you can NEVER be at the same level. You’re entitled to opinion, don’t abuse it to be racist, sexist and misogynistic."