Remember that Diane Abbott, the first ever Black woman MP in the UK, is currently at the eye of another storm around her conception of structural racism and antisemitism. And even in the last tournament, Lauren James had to publicly apologise after being vilified both for her red card and the subsequent racialised abuse she endured. It is fast becoming the normality that any prominent England woman player, striking out in the age of social media, will have to manage their match alongside their mental health, and it’s a disgrace. As far back as 2021, James, then a prodigious teenage talent still playing for Manchester United, wrote starkly about the racial abuse she received after a game.

“All because of the colour of my skin. It is mad. I’m proud of my skin, I love my skin colour. But when I saw the comments on my Instagram feed, it hurt,” she wrote.

It has been upsetting to see the levels of scrutiny the Lionesses have been subjected to in this particular tournament. Over the past few years, women I know who work in the sport say the shift is palpable. But when it comes to abuse? Well, in the men’s game, abusing your own players is part of the lore. Women’s football has long been lauded as a more supportive space. It is fast being commercialised and highly monetised, with a 40% rise in broadcasting income for the WSL 2023-24, and that, frustratingly, seems to bring with it the ugliest parts of mainstream fandom.

“The bigger the game gets, the bigger the noise becomes, the more fans there are, but the more critics there are,” England veteran Lucy Bronze said at a press conference last week.

Jess Carter, at 27, makes up part of a generation of women’s players who haven’t had to be anything else but footballers. She didn’t have to work another job on the side, and she grew up with the visibility of the Women’s Super League. She is engaged to Germany’s Euros-hero goalkeeper, Ann Katrin-Berger, and has spoken beautifully about coming into her queerness. As one of only four Black women currently on the England women’s team, she remains a pioneer. It is devastating that all of her successes, and the benefits she has gained from this new era of women’s football, are being trodden on.

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