Lionesses star Beth Mead’s dad has sent a blunt message to England’s critics after they retained the European Championship. The forward played a key role in the team that defeated Spain on penalties to avenge their 2023 World Cup defeat against the same side.
An epic penalty shootout triumph after Sarina Wiegman’s side came from behind in normal time landed the Lionesses another piece of silverware. Fans are flocking to London tomorrow to celebrate with the players, who will embark on a parade through the city before meeting prime minister Sir Keir Starmer at Downing Street. However, not everyone is keen to lavish the Lionesses with praise despite their remarkable achievement.
Former Premier League footballer Joey Barton, an outspoken critic of women’s football, posted on X: “Well done to the Lioness winning the Nonsense Pottery Trophy. Those penalties were borderline embarrassing again. Don’t ever ask for equal pay again. Youse are miles off it.”
Although not directly in response to Barton, Mead’s father Richard has called out the criticism. He wrote on X: “To all the snipers out there criticising women’s football, guess what? My daughter is a double European champion. How many people can say that? Well done Lionesses.”
Mead was engulfed in the penalty drama in Basel. The Arsenal star was ordered to retake her kick after she slipped and inadvertently made contact with the ball twice. Her second attempt was saved.
She said afterwards: “You can see how emotional we all were tonight, it was pretty incredible. We’ve dug very deep this tournament and we got our rewards by winning. It’s pretty incredible, I’m actually lost for words. To do it once but to do it twice is pretty insane.
“We’ve gone behind in most games in these knockout stages and we’ve comeback, we’ve shown resilience, we’ve shown character and we’ve smashed it and we’ve won. I didn’t plan on slipping and touching the ball two times. It wasn’t an ideal situation obviously but I’m just so happy with the girls getting it over the line.”
Chloe Kelly thumped home the winning penalty in a 3-1 shootout victory. The forward had earlier assisted Alessia Russo’s equaliser, which cancelled out Mariona Caldentey’s 25th-minute goal.
England had reached the last three major tournament finals and won Euro 2022 after beating Germany at Wembley. This is the first time a senior England team has won a major football tournament away from home soil.