Gary Neville and Jill Scott swapped social media accounts for a week to see what would happen and the results were depressing. The football icons teamed up to take part in 'The Social Swap,' a Heineken campaign to highlight the issue of gender bias on X/Twitter in April and they swapped accounts for five days, continuing to share opinions on football as they normally would on UEFA Champions League matches. But unbeknown to Twitter users, for that short time, a message directed at Neville was in fact to Scott, and vice versa. One response Neville got when people thought he was Scott was: "You should probably concentrate on the girls' league." "Save your opinion for what to make for dinner," another comment said. Scott, when people thought she was Neville, on the other hand, received comments such as: "The most objective opinion I've seen from you." “I’ve seen some of the replies that have come into Jill, which were my tweets,” Neville told the Guardian. “‘Get back in the kitchen’, ‘Stick to the game you know, love’, that type of condescending, ignorant tweet … there’s no doubt that in football, women who have an opinion on men’s football basically get told to go back in their box.” Neville added the issue of equality for women’s sport has been important to him since he was a child when his mum got banned from playing football for the boys’ team in the 70s. He now watched football with his children. "The idea they can’t have an opinion on football without having their gender referred to is ridiculous,” he said. Meanwhile, Scott has experienced sexism throughout her life. “I don’t want to tell a sob story, but I remember my first day at senior school, which is daunting anyway,” Scott said. “A lot of people knew I played football. "One boy said: ‘You can’t play football, you’re a girl.’ And I stuck up for myself and chased after him. He tripped me up and I ended up in hospital with a fractured elbow. When I look back at stuff like that, that was just because I played football. I saw him in the pub recently and he came to say well done on winning the Euros … I nearly broke his elbow.” She added: “It’s moments like that where I think it has been tough and, without knowing it, from a young age I started building resilience against that,” Scott says. “Sometimes with resilience we then think we just have to take things and take comments. But I think now if girls go to school and a boy says: ‘Women’s football is crap,’ they’ll be like: ‘Well, we did win the Euros.’ They’ve got a bit of fighting talk behind them.” Scott believes "there has been a big change” in attitudes to women's sport since England won the Euros in 2022. “But we had to go out and do the unthinkable just to get a bit of respect for women’s football," she added. "Fortunately enough we did do it [win the Euros]. But I think this campaign highlights that there’s still a lot of trolls out there.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Valencia head coach Ruben Baraja has said his club will fight back against “smears” after they were handed a five-game partial stadium closure and hefty fine following the racist abuse aimed at Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior. Speaking at a press conference, Baraja stressed he was “absolutely against racism”, but echoed Valencia’s earlier claim that the sanction was “unfair and disproportionate”, and added: “I am not going to allow the Valencia CF fans and Mestalla to be smeared with labels that do not represent us. “Just as a player rightly fights back against insults and I support that with all my might, we as a club and a fanbase rebel against those who, during the days since the game, have accused us of being what we are not.” Vinicius threatened to leave the pitch in the second half of Sunday’s LaLiga match at the Mestalla after being subjected to alleged monkey chants from the crowd and Real Madrid, who said the incident constituted a “hate crime”, filed a complaint with the Spanish State Attorney General’s Office. In response, Valencia have been ordered to shut the Mario Kempes south stand, where the alleged abuse happened, for five matches and have also been fined 45,000 euros (£39,000) by the Spanish football federation (RFEF). Reacting to that sanction, Valencia said in a strongly worded statement on Tuesday evening: “Valencia CF wishes to show its total disagreement and indignation at the unfair and disproportionate penalty imposed by the competition committee on the club with the closure of the stand for five games. “Valencia CF wants to publicly denounce that in this resolution of the RFEF competition committee they show evidence that contradicts what the national police and LaLiga say. “In addition, this sanction is based on evidence that the club has not been able to see and without giving us a hearing. “Valencia CF has condemned, condemns and will condemn in the most energetic way any act of racism or violence. These behaviours have no place in football or in society and we will continue to act in the most forceful way to eradicate this scourge. “For this reason, Valencia CF is collaborating from the first minute with the police and all relevant authorities to clarify the events that occurred last Sunday. “In addition, it has applied the maximum possible sanction with the expulsion for life from our stadium to the fans that the police have identified for their racist behaviour. “For this reason we consider that penalising and depriving all the fans who were not involved in these unfortunate incidents from seeing their team is a totally disproportionate, unfair and unprecedented measure against which we will fight. “The fight against racism requires the real commitment of all the parties involved without using it as a pretext to incur serious injustices. “Valencia CF will appeal to the last instance the closure of the stand, a sanction that it considers totally unfair and one more offence in the latest disciplinary decisions that have been taken against the club. Valencia CF asks for the utmost respect and rigour for our institution and fans.” In announcing the punishment against Valencia, the RFEF said in a statement: “The competition committee has sanctioned Valencia CF with the partial closure of the Mestalla stadium for five matches, more specifically the Mario Kempes south stand, following the events that occurred during the league match between the local team and Real Madrid CF. “It is considered proven that, as reflected by the referee in his minutes, there were racist shouts at Vinicius, a Real Madrid CF player, during the aforementioned match, altering the normal course of the match and considering the infractions very serious.” LaLiga players and officials called for racism to be tackled in Spain in the wake of Sunday’s match. Before Tuesday night’s games between Real Valladolid and Barcelona, and Celta Vigo and Girona, players from both sides, as well as the match officials, stood behind banners which read ‘Racism, out of football’. LaLiga shared a pre-match clip from the Celta-Girona game on its official Twitter account with the hashtag #JUNTOSContraElRacismo (#TOGETHERagainstRacism). The footage also showed a supporter holding up a placard with ‘No Al Racismo’ (No to Racism) written on it. There were similar sentiments at the Valladolid-Barcelona game as fans showed their support for Brazil international Vinicius. Barcelona forward Raphinha removed his shirt when substituted to show a message which read: “As long as the colour of the skin is more important than the brightness of the eyes, there will be war.” Vinicius was not included in Real’s 23-man squad for Wednesday night’s LaLiga match against Rayo Vallecano at the Bernabeu. The forward’s red card against Valencia had been rescinded by the RFEF but the 22-year-old did not train on Tuesday, with Real coach Carlo Ancelotti saying the winger had some discomfort in his knee. Read More Jordi Alba to leave Barcelona at end of season Valencia appeal stadium closure for racist chants and demand ‘respect’ for fans Valencia stadium partially shut after racist chants at Vinicius Jr ‘Powerless’ La Liga calls for radical change after Vinicius Jr racist abuse Real Madrid file hate crime complaint after Vinicius targeted by racist abuse Commentator sparks outrage for criticising Vinicius reaction to facing racist abuse

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