Stacey Lee: World Cup host Lucy Zelic would not be getting abused for properly doing her job if she was a man

SBS World Cup host Lucy Zelic has performed admirably, but online trolls have torn her to shreds for her correct pronunciation of foreign names. What a sad, lonely life they must have to attack a woman for doing her job, writes Stacey Lee.

IT is ridiculous that earlier this week a female TV presenter had to apologise for doing her job.

SBS World Cup host Lucy Zelic has been putting on an outstanding performance over the last fortnight.

She leads the network’s coverage of The World Game and has also taken on an increased workload by hosting more matches than expected after SBS had to bail out Optus, which couldn’t keep up with demand.

But with more viewers comes more feedback and for Zelic the barrage of abuse on social media has been relentless.

And the criticism she’s received mostly centres on how she pronounces names. She makes an effort to pronounce them the way they’d be said in the player’s home country.

Some would say that’s just her doing her job correctly.

But no, the keyboard warriors have labelled her “annoying”, “insufferable” and “a bimbo” who puts on a “fake accent” to “over pronounce” foreign names. Are we serious, Australia?

Sure, when you hear her say Colombia or Cristiano Ronaldo in the way they’d be said in Colombia or Portugal it sounds a bit out of place.

But it is CORRECT. And it’s a trait that the late football icon Les Murray was applauded for. He was renowned for the way he handled player and club names.

SBS World Cup host Lucy Zelic. Picture: Chris Pavlich

So what’s the difference between Murray and Zelic? She’s a woman. And in 2018, where the #MeToo campaign is in the headlines on an almost daily basis this is depressingly disappointing.

What if she pronounced the names like the rest of us; incorrect and with an Aussie twang? Well, I can almost guarantee that she’d get just as much social media hate.

Four years ago Zelic said the abuse almost made her quit. She’s publicly spoken about the “brutal and vicious” comments about her during the 2014 World Cup.

Zelic said social media users tore her to shreds at every opportunity.

She was called an “ugly bimbo”, a “f***ing slut” and was even accused of “sleeping with someone” to get the job.

This is a woman who is so passionate about the sport and her job that she goes out of her way to do it correctly and she has copped so much abuse that she was almost brought to tears on air the other day.

Her colleague, Craig Foster, was forced to break regular football coverage to address it.

He backed her up and said it was respectful to pronounce the names correctly.

“Having linguistic skills, being multilingual, is something you should be very proud of, and something that adds a lot to our coverage,” he said.

How ridiculous that he had to defend his colleague for literally just doing her job.

But if that wasn’t bad enough some trolls have taken it further to say that she doesn’t deserve to have that job because she isn’t a former player and doesn’t have the knowledge that’s needed to pull off that role.

I couldn’t disagree more.

The team of Craig Foster and Lucy Zelic collectively cover all bases, Stacey Lee writes.

I think she and Craig Foster make a great team.

He’s a retired player and can talk about strategy and tactics and Lucy is a sport journalist who is more than capable of leading the coverage.

I’m a football novice who doesn’t know a whole lot about the game but I know enough to enjoy watching it, even with all the ridiculous diving.

For me, having someone like Lucy Zelic explain it to me in layman’s terms really does make a difference.

She might not know as much about football as some people sitting at home watching, but I often get lost in sport coverage when experts and former players get caught up in code-specific terminology.

Having the Zelic-Foster team to cover both bases makes broadcast sense.

They cater to all levels of football knowledge.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could just get on with their lives and enjoy watching The World Game without having to put down the very people that are bringing it to them.

What a sad, lonely life that must be.