Valentina Maceri: "Dazn and Sport Italia don't value women. Sky is another planet. Diletta Leotta? Well done, but..."

"I hadn't even noticed." Valentina Maceri almost bursts into laughter when we ask her about the controversy that's been circulating across Europe. "I only realized something had happened when I started receiving messages on Instagram from Spanish, French, and Italians. They were writing to me, 'You're right, I agree with you.' And I was like, 'What happened?'" So she did what we all do: she Googled her name. "I found thousands of news stories with my photo next to that of Diletta Leotta and Eleonora Incardona . There was Marca in Spain, The Sun in England, Tuttosport in Italy. I thought, 'Excuse me, did I miss something?'"

Valentina Maceri , 32, a former soccer player, is now the face of the Champions League for Swiss broadcaster BlueSport . She speaks five languages—German, English, Spanish, French, and Italian—and decided to tell us how things really went.

How fake news is born

The story begins two months ago. "I gave an interview to RTL Germany before the release of my book, which criticizes modern feminism." Maceri is the daughter of a Roman father and a Sardinian mother, but grew up in Germany. "Since they know my origins, they asked me what I think of Italian football broadcasts . I said that in Germany, on the one hand, we are extreme—we try to be more 'masculine' to be accepted into the football world—while in Italy it's the opposite: female journalists are very exposed ." So far, everything is normal, the problem comes later. "A few days ago, I got a call from Bild , where I've been working for four years. They sent me an article from RTL about the outfits of our colleagues at the Club World Cup in America, especially Eleonora Incardona 's. And they quoted me using the words I'd said two months ago, but referring to her current outfit." They took generic statements from two months earlier and applied them to a specific case from today. "I had never seen Incardona's outfit, let alone judged it."

When her colleagues at Bild called her back for clarification, Maceri said: "If I have to judge this outfit, I personally think it's not appropriate for the context. Everyone dresses as they want, but when you do a serious interview with a footballer, the outfit matters." Then what always happens happened: " Everyone put together their own version. The media sees two beautiful girls doing the same job and the war begins ."

Germany and Italy: two different planets

To understand what Maceri is talking about, you need to know the differences, and she's experienced them firsthand. "For a Champions League match, I wore a long leather skirt with a matching top. Nothing special, I was completely covered up. Well, controversy erupted because I was 'too sexy' for Swiss TV . In Germany, they already consider me too sexy for their standards, but if I were to work in Italy, I'd probably be too unsexy. They're two worlds apart." But despite the exploitation, she confirms her opinion: " If you talk about DAZN or Sport Italia, often the female colleagues aren't dressed appropriately for the context . But be careful: as a woman, I say they're beautiful girls, and TV is made up of images, you like the food to be served well too."

Why Incardona?

Regarding the fact that Eleonora Incardona herself has been targeted, Maceri doesn't skirt around the issue: "She posted those photos with that particular top. And let's be clear, she has a great figure. The same outfit on a smaller girl, especially one with smaller breasts, would be less of a stir; that's objective." Regarding Diletta Leotta , he says, "She's very good, she presents herself well, and she seems nice. I don't know if she's truly knowledgeable about football; I've never spoken to her in person. Sure, every now and then some outfits are borderline, but that's the channel's choice. DAZN has evidently decided to focus on this image ."

From disappointed footballer to journalist

Maceri's career was born from a double disappointment. "I played in the women's Serie A, even in the Champions League. At twenty, after a season at Verona, I saw what happens to former players. Thirty-year-old women with incredible careers—World Cups, European Championships—who ended their careers with nothing in their pocket. They had to start over because in women's football you don't earn enough to settle down." But there was something else that bothered her: " I saw women on TV asking memorized questions, panicking when faced with an unexpected situation, clearly not understanding what they were talking about. And above all, no one took them seriously ." Hence the decision: "I thought it would be nice to see a woman who really knows what she's doing and is respected. I had played, I understood football, I'd been in those circles since I was three." So she returned to Germany , studied journalism, and did internships with Sky and all the German sports channels . "Before becoming a presenter, I became a real journalist. I wrote for Bild, I did a lot of things behind the scenes." Today I work freelance: " Champions League for the Swiss channel, the Bowler League and Kings League in Germany, then social media, advertising, everything in the world of sports ."

Sky beats DAZN 3-0

When we ask her what she thinks of Italian sports journalism, her answer is clear: "It depends where. Sky does a great job. I was a fan of Ilaria D'Amico, then there's Giorgia Cenni, Federica Masolin, all good colleagues. DAZN and Sport Italia have chosen a different path ." And here comes the final blow: "I know a lot of footballers. Their opinion of Italian female journalists? That you don't need to be competent to do this job. They know that in most cases only appearances count. Sky is completely different." The verdict: " On Sky I see seriousness. On DAZN I see beautiful, friendly girls, but I don't know how much substance there is behind it ."

The tricolour dream

Despite all this chaos, Maceri makes no secret of her desire to work in Italy : "I've tried two or three times. I was even on Sky Italia during the European Championships, covering broadcasts from Berlin. I feel more Italian than German, even though I grew up here. I was born into Italian culture, and sooner or later I'd like to return to my roots." Speaking five languages, she says, could be an advantage: "International experience in Italy can be helpful. The more you've seen, the better."

The Maceri-strategy

Her role model is Kate Abdo, who she presents for CBS: "She speaks five languages like me, she's 42, and she's very good. If you want to last in this business, you can't be someone who's only good for the moment. You have to build a serious career for the next ten, fifteen years." And this is also why she maintains a different profile from her colleagues: "I've never entered beauty pageants—they're not used in Germany, and anyway, I'm too short. I have, like, two or three bikini photos on social media, no more. It's a question of how you want to manage your image."

She's pragmatic about her relationships with players : "It can happen that you fall in love with someone you work with; we don't have much of a private life. But I try to avoid it. If things go badly, you end up in the same environment over and over again. In any case, players, but also sporting directors, immediately understand if you're serious or if they can try something. They've rarely tried that with me."

The controversy that has swept across Europe stemmed from journalistic manipulation, but it has shed light on a real issue: the boundary between expertise and spectacle in sports reporting . With Europe torn between the rigor of the North and the spectacle of the Mediterranean.