Ace sports journalist, Veronica Commey has condemned the sexism, misogynism, and gender-based discrimination that she believes exists in the sports journalism space.
Veronica Commey lamented the situation where budding female sports journalists are looked down upon purely based on their gender.
Sharing her experience with colleague sports journalist, Betty Yawson, Veronica Commey encouraged young journalists not to
Read full articlebe cowed into silence by such gender-bias narratives.
She cited situations where false allegations were spread against her by detractors in a bid to sway her off.
Veronica Commey who has had the chance to cover four FIFA World Cup tournaments stated that her biggest regret is allowing those rumours to get to her.
According to her, she faced a tough hurdle hearing rumours of being in bed with the footballers at the 2009 U20 World Cup in Egypt.
“The 2009 U20 World Cup in Egypt, there were three ladies, I had a room and I accommodated them. Throughout we were in one room together and everything. We came back and these stories were flying everywhere. It was about we sleeping with the players, the GFA president then, the minister then and these stories were everywhere,” she said in the interview.
“It was too bad that I was on TV anchoring and the first message came to the panel around me that Veronica Commey slept with this,” she added.
Veronica Commey stated that she became frustrated to the extent that she had to consult a juju man to help her find the person behind the threats and false accusations.
“I remember one day I received a call from the Flagstaff House, it was Nii Lante Vanderpuye, he said why are you intimidated and I said it's okay. He made an arrangement and an investigation was underway to find the person.”
“It was around that time that the National Security insisted that every number must be registered because they couldn’t trace the number. The person will send the text and put the phone off,” Veronica Commey stated.
“This led me to a place where I actually went to see a mallam one Sunday morning because I told someone I had been so distressed, I need to see a very good mallam, so we went. I wanted to see the one behind it because it wasn’t true. The person will say I will make sure you kill yourself in some of the messages,” she said.
“I was carrying a lot of dollars and I told the mallam that we travelled and came back and these things are flying around. It’s not true and I really want to know who is behind this so I can deal with the person.
“The mallam said I should leave this to God and I said to myself they said you people have powers but you know nothing but for the benefit of hinge sight I felt like this was good advice,” she added.
