PARIS \u2014 French sports media leader L\u2019\u00c9quipe has disavowed comments by a female presenter who criticized Belgium winger Jeremy Doku for wanting to leave the World Cup to be at the birth of his first child.<\/p>\n
L\u2019\u00c9quipe also apologized to Doku in a statement late Sunday and said the comments by France Pierron did not represent its values. <\/p>\n
Pierron described childbirth as \u201ca disgusting moment, excuse me, where the dad is useless\u201d when taking part in the television show \u201cL\u2019\u00c9quipe de Choc\u201d on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are hundreds of footballers who would kill to be in your place,\u201d she said on the show, reacting to Doku\u2019s comments in the United States.<\/p>\n
Doku\u2019s wife Shireen is due to give birth to their son in early July when Belgium hopes to be playing in the knockout rounds of the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one wants to miss a birth,\u201d said the 24-year-old Doku, who is a star in the Belgium squad and plays for Manchester City. <\/p>\n
Pierron questioned Doku\u2019s priorities as he was \u201cliving a childhood dream. It might never happen again in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was unclear if Pierron would be part of Monday\u2019s scheduled broadcast of the talk show on the cable channel run by the storied daily sports newspaper. <\/p>\n
Doku received support from England forward Ollie Watkins, who was asked about the family choices facing players.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said it only happens once, your first child. Welcoming them to the world is a blessing,\u201d Watkins said during a news conference at the England training camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone labeled it disgusting. And I think for a start that\u2019s not a way to label a birth. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s anyone else\u2019s business what he gets up to after training,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 French sports media leader L\u2019\u00c9quipe has disavowed comments by a female presenter who criticized Belgium winger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[1952,7,3934,1953,1849],"class_list":["post-23174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-ap-a-wire","tag-belgium","tag-soccer","tag-wires-bot","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116793162216675906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}