{"id":23342,"date":"2026-06-22T22:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T22:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/23342\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T22:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T22:40:11","slug":"belgiums-doku-welcomes-son-during-world-cup-amid-commentator-controversy-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/23342\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium\u2019s Doku welcomes son during World Cup amid commentator controversy | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"World<\/a><\/p>\n

Doku travelled while French presenter who said fathers are \u2018useless\u2019 at childbirth was stood down from her show.<\/p>\n

Published On 22 Jun 202622 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

Jeremy Doku has become a father, the Belgian football association announced, days after the player\u2019s plans to leave the World Cup to attend the birth of child sparked controversy.<\/p>\n

After consultations with medical staff, Doku was allowed to temporarily leave the Red Devils before last Sunday\u2019s game with Iran to join his wife in London, where the couple welcomed a baby boy, Praise, the federation said on Monday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cJeremy received the news before yesterday\u2019s match that the birth was imminent,\u201d the team\u2019s doctor Brahim Hacene said.<\/p>\n

Doku had already been ruled out of Sunday\u2019s match due to illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs he had already been receiving the appropriate medical treatment for several days, he was able to fly without any medical risk to be with his family during this very special moment,\u201d the doctor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMother, father, and baby are all doing wonderfully,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Doku, who is to rejoin his teammates in Seattle on Tuesday, is regarded as one of the best young players in the Belgium squad, who have made a solid if unspectacular start to their campaign, drawing both their matches thusfar.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old had made it clear before the Red Devils\u2019 first match that he would have wanted to be there for the birth of his first child \u2014 drawing criticism from some quarters.<\/p>\n

A presenter on L\u2019Equipe TV, the TV channel of the historic French sports newspaper, questioned the decision saying fathers were \u201cuseless\u201d at childbirth whereas hundreds of footballers would have killed to play in a World Cup.<\/p>\n

The comments triggered an online storm, forcing L\u2019Equipe to apologise and distance itself from them, the presenter has been stood down from her show.<\/p>\n

Doku started in Belgium\u2019s first match against Egypt but struggled to make an impact before being replaced.<\/p>\n

The lacklustre scoreless draw<\/a> against Iran in Los Angeles drew scorn from Belgian media, which lambasted the team\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

Belgium, who are rebuilding after their \u201cgolden generation\u201d showed age had caught up with them in exiting at the group stage in the 2022 World Cup, can assure themselves of progressing to the last 32 with a win over New Zealand in their final group match on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doku travelled while French presenter who said fathers are \u2018useless\u2019 at childbirth was stood down from her show.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,499,1857,1865,3206],"class_list":["post-23342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-football","tag-sport","tag-us-canada","tag-world-cup-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116796170274939841","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23342","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=23342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}