ARD has now also announced that it will finally have a woman commentate on World Cup games. Christina Graf completes the commentary team with colleagues Bartels, Gottlob and Naß.
Christina Graf will be the first ARD woman in Qatar to commentate on a World Cup game. (Source: © NDR/Lina Klünker)
- With Christina Graf, ARD is using a commentator for the first time at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
- Graf was last in action at the women’s European Championships in the summer, for example.
- Decades of omissions line the way to this measure.
With Christina Graf, a woman has finally joined the ARD World Cup commentary team. After the shitstorm of the past tournaments always focused on Claudia Neumann from ZDF, the first now recognizes that it might be time to let a TV commentator report on World Cup games and thus the competent ZDF colleague to put some support aside.
Opportunities would have been plentiful
Even if Claudia Neumann’s style may not appeal to everyone, and this can of course also be the case with Christina Graf, the same also applies to all male colleagues. The fact that ARD will not let a woman comment live at a World Cup until 2022 is actually absurd.
Also interesting…
Long before Claudia Neumann, Sabine Töpperwien did recognized live work on the assembly line at the ARD station WDR for decades and was still always ignored at major tournaments. In addition to Christina Graf, endgame reporters Tom Bartels, Gerd Gottlob and Florian Naß complete the ARD commentary team. The SWR, which coordinates the World Cup broadcasts, has not communicated which and how many games Graf will get.
A woman comments on the finale on the radio
Incidentally, Julia Metzner is also the first woman to comment on a World Cup final on radio. The time when commentators like Metzner and Graf were unwanted by many viewers is far from over. But the only way to change that is through regular engagements.
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