{"id":13753,"date":"2026-05-14T09:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/13753\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:56:16","slug":"union-berlin-pushes-back-on-sexist-comments-aimed-at-trailblazing-coach-marie-louise-eta-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/13753\/","title":{"rendered":"Union Berlin pushes back on sexist comments aimed at trailblazing coach Marie-Louise Eta"},"content":{"rendered":"

After naming Marie-Louise Eta the first female head coach<\/a> in Europe\u2019s \u201cbig five\u201d soccer leagues, Union Berlin says the club \u201chas her back\u201d as senior executives condemned sexist comments on social media Monday.<\/p>\n

Eta\u2019s first Bundesliga<\/a> game is Saturday against Wolfsburg. There have already been critical comments on social media suggesting that she\u2019s not suitable for the job because she\u2019s a woman. <\/p>\n

Union has pushed back online and in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 100 percent confidence in Loui, with complete conviction. I find it crazy that we have to deal with this in this day and age, that we have to justify ourselves,\u201d Union\u2019s director of men\u2019s professional football, Horst Heldt said.<\/p>\n

Communications director Christian Arbeit said Eta just wanted to coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarie-Louise Eta has a very pragmatic approach to all of its,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s very conscious that it\u2019s something special, but for her soccer is in the foreground. She wants to work with the team and she wants to be on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eta has been named interim coach for the last five games of the season as Union aims to secure its spot in the Bundesliga for next season. Union previously said she will take over as head coach of the club\u2019s women\u2019s team for next season, but Heldt didn\u2019t rule out her continuing with the men\u2019s team either after this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at the moment it wouldn\u2019t make sense to rule anything out beyond that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Union has also been defending Eta online<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all due respect, that\u2019s sexism,\u201d Union\u2019s account on X responded to a post arguing that players wouldn\u2019t take a woman\u2019s instructions about tactics seriously. Eta is a longtime member of the club\u2019s coaching staff who has been assistant<\/a> to the men\u2019s team and head coach of the under-19 team. <\/p>\n

It branded another comment \u201csexist\u201d for claiming that a male coach who lost to her would lose face.<\/p>\n

Responding to a comment expressing concern about the treatment of Eta and a potential sexist backlash if she loses a game, the club posted: \u201cThe Union family has her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision to appoint Eta won praise from Berlin\u2019s mayor Kai Wegner, who called the decision \u201ca strong signal for professional soccer and for women in elite-level sports,\u201d but spelled Eta\u2019s name wrong in the process. The club corrected him. \u201cWe were so overwhelmed,\u201d Wegner answered.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After naming Marie-Louise Eta the first female head coach in Europe\u2019s \u201cbig five\u201d soccer leagues, Union Berlin says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,4602,7342,3910,3943,3911,710,259,897,2624],"class_list":{"0":"post-13753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-christian-arbeit","10":"tag-discrimination","11":"tag-horst-heldt","12":"tag-labor-unions","13":"tag-marie-louise-eta","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-union-berlin","17":"tag-vfl-wolfsburg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}