EXCLUSIVE: Fury over the WSL’s silence surrounding the embarrasing cup draw that saw celebrity GK Barry making lewd jokes and putting balls back in the bag has growm
Some of England’s top women’s football teams are fuming after last week’s disastrous league cup draw. Led by social media influencer GK Barry and her girlfriend, the Portsmouth midfielder Ella Rutherford, the draw decided the quarterfinals and semi-finals of the Subway Cup.
Streamed live on TikTok, it sent shockwaves through the women’s game after the “I’m a Celeb…” star made lesbian sex jokes, mocked Spurs, and even put a ball back into the bag, risking voiding the whole process.
Now, the teams want answers. A furious insider at one club told Charlotte Henry for the Daily Star: “It was embarrassing for everyone involved
“Women’s football is a great product on the pitch, with lots of people working hard to grow the game. It deserved better than this – it was completely unprofessional. There is so much desperation to look innovative and target new audiences, that the sporting integrity has been compromised once again.”
A figure at another club said that “like most people we were disappointed at how it was handled and we’ll give the appropriate feedback in private.”
The first added that it is “deeply concerning that the WSL didn’t address this publicly. WSL Football, the company that runs the top two tiers of the women’s game in
England, as well the league cup, has not responded to the furore. It did not answer a request for comment.
The incident came at a particularly embarrassing time. Last week, the Football Associations of England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland officially put in their bid to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup. The UK was confirmed as the only bidder back in April.
Neither GK Barry nor Rutherford have made any reference to the controversy on their social media feeds. Their representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
GK Barry, real name real name Grace Eleanor Keeling, has over four million subscribers on TikTok. She appears on “Loose Women” and starred in last season’s “I’m a Celebrity…” Rutherford joined Pompey from Ipswich in the summer but is yet to score for her new club. The pair have been an item since early 2024.
Chelsea are the current holders of the Subway Women’s League Cup. There is a feeling within the women’s game that it is not taken very seriously, something the recent problems only add to.
The competition has a different format to others. Teams from the WSL and WSL 2 enter an initial group stage. Not only can they gain the usual three points for a win and one for a draw, but they can get a bonus point if, followingthey win a penalty shootout.
From next season, teams in the Women’s Champions League will not feature in the competition.
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