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On January 5, 2024, BBC football pundit Eni Aluko was criticized on social media by the former Manchester City star Joey Barton. Barton took to X, commenting how her coverage of the game EFC had taken it to “a new low.”
In his tweet, Barton also compared Aluko and co-presenter Lucy Ward to Fred and Rose West, who were renowned as one of the most horrific serial killers in the history of the UK.
Eni Aluko didn’t respond to Barton’s tweet initially but took to Instagram on January 17 to share how “scared” she had been the entire week, not leaving her house due to all the death and r*pe threats she had been receiving online.
"I've genuinely been scared this week. I didn't leave my house until Friday and now I'm abroad. It's really important to say that online abuse hasa direct impact on your safety and how safe you feel in real life."
Aluko’s final remark ignited former goalkeeper Paddy Kenny, who already had a feud with Aluko since June 2023. Kenny, who had traveled to Mexico with family for a holiday, posted a parody video of Eni Aluko, mocking her by saying, “I’ve had to flee the country” before breaking into laughter.
Kenny’s recent mockery of Aluko has added a new strike in their long-standing feud history, starting with Aluko’s Declan Rice transfer theory in June 2023.
The history Eni Aluko and Kenny Paddy’s feud explored
The feud between Eni Aluko and Kenny Paddy started back in June 2023, when Aluko spoke on TalkSPORT about the bidding tug-of-war between Manchester City and Arsenal for Rice,
“I don’t think Mancester City actually wants to sign Declan Rice, I think what’s going on is Arteta has picked up the phone to Pep [Guardiola] and said listen, Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach, if you put a higher bid in, that will push my owner.”
TalkSPORT shared Aluko’s theory video on X, which went viral, receiving over 4k comments and 5k reposts. Countless football fans slammed Aluko in the comments, claiming it was “the worst opinion” they’d ever heard. Others called her “clown” and her theory “absolute nonsense”.
By the end of the month, Eni Aluko had received enough backlash from abusive comments and online threats about her Declan Rice theory to finally delete her X account.
One of the reposts on the TalkSPORT tweet was made by ex-Premier League goalkeeper Kenny Paddy.
In his retweet, Paddy wrote:
Eni Akulo reportedly took Paddy’s retweet seriously and DMed him on Instagram. In her DMs, Aluko called Paddy “jealous and bitter” and said she’d like to tune in to Paddy’s next airtime to see how he uses it.
The ex-footballer shared a screenshot of Akulo’s DMs on X on the evening of July 4 and then again a couple of hours later to upload another screenshot for her DMs. In his second tweet, Paddy mentioned how he thought he needed to block her because if he talked to her in the same manner, “there would be hell on.”
Eni Aluko stated in her recent Instagram video that she's currently abroad and is no longer active on X. Whether or not the presenter chooses to react to Paddy’s latest parody video as it reaches her remains to be seen.
