World Cup viewers were left stunned after a soccer pundit used an X-rated expletive live on air ahead of the United States’ much-anticipated opener against Paraguay on Friday.

Former soccer player-turned-pundit Alexi Lalas appeared on Fox’s coverage of FIFA’s showpiece tournament, alongside Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The moment that left viewers stunned

Alexi Lalas stuns viewers with expletive on live TV. Credit: FOX Sports

Previewing the USMNT’s debut in this edition of the competition, the trio had been discussing the host’s chances in front of their home faithful while at Los Angeles Stadium.

Live on air, the panel, hosted by Rebecca Lowe, was watching preparations for the opening ceremony of the US’ share of the tournament, with the country being joint hosts with Canada and Mexico.

After airing a segment in which James Corden was seen training the USMNT squad while wearing the country’s official away kit, Lalas responded with a risque phrase.

Lalas, who made over 90 appearances for the USMNT in the 1990s, joked: "What do you guys call him, a full kit w***er, right?"

With the rest of the panel looking mortified, and Henry’s mouth visibly agape, Lalas rushed to justify his comment, "What? He’s all dressed up and ready to go?"

Still shocked by Lalas’ nonchalant use of an expletive on live TV, Henry retorted: "Did he just say that?"

Lowe then quickly interjected, stating: "Luckily, we are on American television, because the 'W' word on British TV 'uh-uh'", waving her finger.

Social media responds hilariously

Unsurprisingly, viewers were also left shocked by Lalas’ casual use of a swear word, with one X user claiming: “NOT ON LIVE TV. THIERRY HENRY COULDN’T BELIEVE IT.”

Another commented: "full kit w***er, which if you dont know, is one of the best sayings we have ever invented."

Others pointed out Henry’s hilarious reaction: "We have a new Thierry Henry meme."

However, some users highlighted the disparity between the use of the word in the UK and its meaning in the US, "Alexei Lalas said 'FULL KIT w***er'. Apart from him being spot on, funny here in the UK, but it can't have much connotation in the US surely?"

Featured Image. Credit: FOX Sports

A Mexican trade association leader is expected to lose his position after a video showing him making a racist gesture toward a South Korean influencer during a World Cup match went viral online.

South Korean content creator Yoon Su-jin, known online as inocat_t and followed by nearly nine million people across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, was filming herself celebrating South Korea's opening World Cup win over Czechia in Jalisco, Mexico, when the incident occurred.

While recording, Ulises Bernal, president of the College of Topographic and Geomatic Engineers of Jalisco, appeared in the background.

The man's racist gesture

Footage shows him laughing, making hand gestures, and then pulling his eyes into a slanted shape before sitting back down. Yoon appeared visibly shocked as she looked toward her camera.

Reacting to the moment, Yoon wrote in Korean: “I came all the way to Mexico for the World Cup, but … am I being too sensitive?” She also described the experience by writing: “POV: You traveled across the world for the World Cup… and experienced racism.”

The backlash was unsurprisingly quick, prompting a huge response from the engineering association.

A spokesperson for the government trade association told The New York Post: “We are deeply saddened by what is happening regarding this incident.”

They also confirmed that disciplinary action was being considered, explaining that “the Honor and Justice Committee is meeting this same day” and that Bernal would be “removed from office.”

Yoon-su Jin was subjected to racist abuse at the World Cup. Credit: Yoon-su Jin/TikTok

Social media condemns abuse

Many social media users expressed support for Yoon and condemned the behavior of Bernal, in what was supposed to be a celebration of football.

One commenter wrote: “That’s rude, that’s not right! I apologize, not all Mexicans are like that.”

Another person dismissed Bernal's actions as ignorance rather than representative of the country, saying: “Just as there are people all over the world with something wrong with their brains, that guy is no exception.” The commenter added: “Let it go and enjoy everything else.”

However, not everyone agreed that the gesture was offensive. Some users argued that people were overreacting.

One ignorant commenter claimed: “A few years ago, no one took offense at that gesture. Today, people are so thin-skinned that they call anything racism.”

Another person attempted to defend the behavior as part of local culture, writing: “That’s just how we are in Mexico. We give everyone nicknames, we make fun of everything, and we love to tease and banter — it’s what makes us happy.”

The commenter continued: “Just because there’s a lot of racism in the US, people want to apply that same standard to Mexico? Give me a break.”

The incident has sparked broader discussion online about racism, cultural differences, and the behavior expected from public figures during major international events like the World Cup.

Featured Image. Credit: Yoon-su Jin/TikTok

The World Cup is in full swing at the moment, meaning that fans celebrating the tournament in Russia are busy cheering on their respective nations, drinking a bit too much beer during the games, and - apparently - harassing reporters who are trying to cover the sports event.

This weekend, one Brazilian sports correspondent named Julia Guimarães was sexually harassed by a male soccer fan as she presented a piece to camera. The incident happened shortly before the Senegal vs. Japan match on Sunday, while Guimarães was live on air, and viewers were shocked to see the man so brazenly approach the reporter as she was trying to do her job.

Thankfully, Guimarães saw the man's intentions before he could touch her, and recoiled from him as he tried to kiss her face.

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Millar_Colin/status/1011002105325375489]]

"Don't do this. Never do this again," Guimarães says during the clip. "Don't do this. I don't allow you to do this, never, OK? This is not polite. This is not right. Never do this. Never do this to a woman, OK? Respect."

But this isn't the only time she's been approached like this during her stint at the 2018 World Cup. During the opening match between Russia and Egypt in Moscow, the reporter was harassed in a similar manner.

"It's hard to find the words," the reporter wrote on Twitter. "Luckily, I have never experienced this in Brazil. Over here it has happened twice. Sad! Shameful!"

And, understandably, the inappropriate behaviour from fans is really affecting Guimarães' ability to do her job.

"It's horrible. I feel helpless and vulnerable," she told Globo Esporte. "This time I responded but it's sad people don't understand why people feel they have the right to do that."

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/KayLMurray/status/1011042872962048000]]

Other journalists and sports fans have been expressing their solidarity with Guimarães on Twitter, with one sports commentator saying, "The guy is a total jerk. An idiot with the mind of a 13 year old boy, but Júlia Guimarães was great in her reaction."

"All my solidarity with reporter Júlia Guimarães, harassed live on SportTV, while she was covering the World Cup," said another. "After dodging the kiss, Julia warned: 'I don't allow you to do that to me. Never do that to a woman. Respect!' The fight against harassment is of all of us!"

However, not everyone has been so supportive of female reporters during the sporting event. In fact, after another reporter was groped and kissed on air last week (see the clip below), some people took to social media in order to defend the harasser.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BkDMyupDFqv/?utm_source=ig_embed]]

"This poor guy is getting slated for kissing her on the cheek. Total over reaction again from the internet," wrote one person.

"Really tho? All he did was go up to her and grab her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek, obviously yelling out something for the team he's rooting for. U guys need to stop making something out of nothing fr. Ridiculous," said another.

However, these people seem to be missing the point. Female reporters get interrupted and harassed by men all the time while trying to do their jobs and - even if people don't consider their actions to be "serious" - nobody should be expected to put up with strangers kissing and touching them without consent.

Hopefully, Guimarães' reaction will show more people that this sort of behavior is absolutely unacceptable - regardless of how innocent it is made out to be.

The objectification of women in sports is a tale as old as time. Whether that is scantily clad "grid girls" standing in front of cars before the Grands Prix or the Darts Corporation's "walk-on girls", there is a long history of women being treated as accoutrements in live sporting competitions. Now while the aforementioned practices have since banned the use of both "grid girls" and "walk-on girls", one game where women are still prized solely on their looks is, of course, the football.

Certainly, whenever watching televised football, the camera always seems to zoom in on one of two things: children holding amusing signs, and beautiful women.

This practice may be about to change, however. In a bid to tackle sexism, television stations have been told by FIFA to stop zooming in on attractive women within the crowds.

The head of sustainability and diversity at FIFA, Federico Addiechi, has spoken positively of the changes. "We've done it with individual broadcasters. We've done it with our host broadcast services," he stated, before explaining that FIFA is prepared to "take action against things that are wrong".

There have been an unprecedented number of reports of sexism at this year's World Cup, with female reporters allegedly being harassed, not just online, but in public too. Certainly, while pre-tournament concerns that Russia 2018 would see a barrage of homophobic and racist attacks have not materialised, accounts of sexist behaviour have been rife.
The anti-discrimination collective, Fare Network, have been working with FIFA to monitor behaviour and attitudes in and around the World Cup games, and its executive director, Piara Powar, has since stated that sexism has been the biggest issue at Russia 2018.

Speaking to journalist at a press conference about diversity issues before England's semi-final against Croatia, Powar said that he and his time have "documented more than 30 cases" of mostly Russian women being "accosted in the streets" by male football fans. He added, however, that the real number of incidents is likely to be "10 times this".

He also said that there have been several cases of female reporters being kissed or groped while on air.

When quizzed on what FIFA could do to tackle such behaviour, Addiechi explained that the federation has been working with local organisers and the Russian police to identify these fans, some of which have since lost their FAN-IDs and been ordered out of the country.
Addiechi has since clarified that halting the zooming in on "hot women" in the crowds is "one of the activities that we definitely will have in the future - it's a normal evolution."We have done it on a case-by-case basis when some cases arose and they were pretty evident."

"We've done it with individual broadcasters. We've done it as well with our host broadcast services," he continued, before adding that it is not yet part of "proactive campaign".

Italy's women's soccer team has apologized a racist tweet was made from its Twitter account.

Per The New York Post, the controversy was ignited on Thursday, August 5, when Italian team Juventus FC tweeted an image of one of their players Cecilia Salvai.

As you can see in the since-deleted post, Salvai was wearing an orange plastic cone on her head, seemingly meant to represent rice hats associated with a number of Asian cultures, while pulling back the skin at the side of her eyes to make them appear hooded.

The tweet also included three emojis, seemingly meant to represent the same action.

This picture immediately incurred a significant backlash from other social media users, who accused the soccer team of bigotry and racist stereotyping.

As a result of its extremely critical response, the picture was deleted a mere 20 minutes after being posted.

A spokesperson for the team took to Twitter later that day to write: "We sincerely apologize that our tweet, which was not meant to cause controversy or have any racial undertones, may have offended anyone.

"Juventus has always been against racism and discrimination. #DifferencesMakeTheDifference [sic]"

However, a number of Twitter users were left incredulous by the response and critical of its sincerity.

One person wrote: "The question you need to ask yourselves is how the person in the picture didn't know this was racist?

"How did the photographer not know this was racist? How did your social media handler not know this was racist?"

A second added: "Please explain in detail what it was meant to convey then."

Another wrote: "It doesn't have racist undertones, it has racist through-and-through tones."

While another quipped: "Lol undertone - that’s about the overest overtone one could have. [sic]"

Then this user stated: "But… it wasn't even racial undertones… it was just straight up racist."

Another added: "Yeah it's funny how people say they’ve always been against racism but don’t understand how this is blatantly racist and offensive.

"My grandpa didn't spend 7 years in a prison so that his culture could be laughed at by football players. Hold athletes accountable for their actions. [sic]"

In an official statement posted to its website, a spokesperson for Juventus added: "We would like to express our deepest apologies for the social post that read as racially discriminatory content on the Juventus Women's Football Twitter account yesterday."

They went on: "Juventus immediately realized that the Club had committed an unforgivable mistake, and this mistake has seriously hurt the feelings of all people who oppose racial discrimination.

"Juventus acknowledges this mistake, and the Club will make the most profound reflection and thorough review to prevent similar things from happening again."

Per The New York Times, Juventus FC was previously accused of having a culture of racism when Black striker Moise Kean was subjected to prejudiced abuse from fans.

Featured Image Credit: Live Media Publishing Group / Alamy