{"id":903448,"date":"2026-09-24T07:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T07:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903448\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T07:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T07:14:24","slug":"football-news-2026-womens-champions-league-broadcast-technical-difficulties-interruption-gimmicky-for-fans-viral-dog-as-guest-on-disney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903448\/","title":{"rendered":"Football News 2026: Women\u2019s Champions League broadcast technical difficulties, interruption, gimmicky for fans, viral dog as guest on Disney+"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disney+ has copped flak for a technical difficulty in the first Women\u2019s Champions League<\/a> match streamed, which was interrupted by an \u201cunintended\u201d advert in the middle of play.<\/p>\n

During this week\u2019s coverage of Arsenal<\/a>\u2019s 1-0 victory over HB Koge, play was interrupted by an unprompted three-minute ad break in the second half. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Hangout\u2019s panel guests caused a stir online.\u00a0Disney+<\/p>\n

While no goals were missed, the blunder sparked immediate outrage among fans. <\/p>\n

Disney+ confirmed the interruption was an unintended technical fault and acknowledged viewer frustration, stating it is taking steps to prevent a recurrence.<\/p>\n

The streaming service\u2019s new analysis show, The Hangout, also drew heavy fire for its \u201cgimmicky\u201d tone. <\/p>\n

Hosted by Alex Scott alongside former England forward Lianne Sanderson and content creators Alex Bailess and Tyra Mills, the broadcast leaned into entertainment rather than football analysis.<\/p>\n

Segments included a random quiz about Italy and pasta, as well as a guest appearance by Barley Boy – an Instagram-famous golden retriever dog with no connection to football.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy does women\u2019s football coverage always have to be so gimmicky? It\u2019s the Champions League, not Blue Peter,\u201d wrote Flo Lloyd-Hughes on X, a broadcaster for the Cutback.<\/p>\n

“Put some pundits who know about the teams in a studio, make sure the tech works and have a decent bit of time for build-up and analysis to contextualise everything.”<\/p>\n

The random ad break was just one of several technical issues. <\/p>\n

Players waiting to be interviewed by the studio were unable to hear questions from the couch and Italian reporter Roberto Perrone – in Milan for Inter Milan\u2019s match against Swedish side Hacken – also encountered audio problems.<\/p>\n

The broadcast also suffered from ongoing synchronisation problems, camera shots unexpectedly obstructed by studio cushions and a malfunctioning rotating studio floor. <\/p>\n

This blunder from Disney+ has reignited ongoing debates regarding the legitimacy and respect afforded to women\u2019s football<\/a> coverage. <\/p>\n

In November 2025, the decision to have social media influencer GK Barry conduct the Women\u2019s League Cup quarter-final and semi-final draw caused controversy over the prevalence of influencers being handed jobs over traditional football pundits. <\/p>\n

In the same month, Sky Sports UK was pushed to scrap its all-new female-focused TikTok channel, Halo, after just three days after its launch following criticism that its sports coverage was patronising and sexist.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Disney+ secured a five-year deal to exclusively broadcast the women\u2019s football competition across Europe and in Australia, replacing the previous rights holders, DAZN.<\/p>\n

The platform will be under pressure to smooth out its operations as coverage continues on Wednesday with Chelsea<\/a> hosting Austria Wien.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disney+ has copped flak for a technical difficulty in the first Women\u2019s Champions League match streamed, which was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-903448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}