{"id":443038,"date":"2026-02-24T13:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/443038\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:40:08","slug":"man-utd-icons-daughter-holidays-with-bbc-presenter-19-years-older-than-her-football-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/443038\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Utd icon’s daughter holidays with BBC presenter 19 years older than her | Football | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

BBC presenter Gethin Jones marked his 48th birthday with Sky Sports star Pien Meulensteen by his side. The Welsh television host jetted off with Pien – the 29-year-old daughter of former Manchester United coach Rene Meulensteen – alongside a group of friends for a skiing getaway to the alpine resort of Morzine in the French Alps. He posted several pictures from the holiday on social media, including images of the party unwinding together in a hot tub.<\/p>\n

Captioning his Instagram<\/a> photo dump, he wrote: “A quality few days in Morzine with a top class group ‘the padel princesses’. First time I went to the mountains I raced half pipe and tried a ski jump, this was around 20 years ago! I’ve been skiing a few times since then but decided to get my first lesson this time, and guess what, it really helped. Waiting for the queen of socials @pienmeulensteen to send some reels. Until then, here’s my offering!”<\/p>\n

Pien, 29, was raised in a footballing household, with her father spending six years as Sir Alex Ferguson’s trusted assistant having previously held academy positions at the club. The Dutch-born journalist has since forged a hugely successful career entirely on her own merit.<\/p>\n

Beyond her Sky Sports responsibilities, she also presents live coverage for ITV, DAZN and the Premier League’s dedicated channel. Her broadcasting journey began at BBC<\/a> Manchester whilst she was a student at the University of Salford.<\/p>\n

Pien’s expertise goes beyond presenting, having taken on commentary roles for numerous fixtures. She made history in 2023 by becoming the first woman to commentate on a live Premier League match for Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

Speaking about her transition into commentary, Pien admitted it was an aspect of broadcasting she had never envisaged exploring. In a 2024 interview with The Guardian, she said: “Commentary was never something I really ever thought I was going to get into.<\/p>\n

“I used to think, ‘How do people do this? How do people talk for that long and know what to say?'” She turned to her father for guidance after questioning her suitability.<\/p>\n

Pien added: “I remember saying to my dad, ‘I don’t think I’m good enough to do this.’ And he said, ‘Where do you want to be in five years’ time? Where do you want to be in 20 years’ time?’<\/p>\n

“We’ve always done this. Even when I was younger, he would write a ladder for me. ‘Is it going in the direction you want?’ Yes. ‘Then go through that door and see what happens next.’ Now I’m here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BBC presenter Gethin Jones marked his 48th birthday with Sky Sports star Pien Meulensteen by his side. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[243,6491,96,32307,1441,161072,140902,161073,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-443038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bbc","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-gethin-jones","tag-manchester-united-fc","tag-pien-meulensteen","tag-rene-meulensteen","tag-skiing-holiday","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}