Disney+ has said a three-minute advert break that interrupted its Women’s Champions League coverage on Tuesday evening was not scheduled. Arsenal and HB Koge were drawing 0-0 in the second half when the broadcast cut away from the match.
“We are aware that our customers experienced an unintended interruption during the second half of the match on Tuesday evening,” Disney told BBC Sport. “This was a technical issue and our team is taking steps to ensure it does not happen again. This was not an intended ad break and we understand the frustration this disruption caused to our customers watching the game.”
The interruption was one of several technical problems during the broadcast. Arsenal went on to win 1-0 in their opening game of this season’s competition, Mariona Caldentey scoring a stoppage-time penalty.
The match was the second season of the Women’s Champions League to be shown on Disney+, which holds the broadcast rights to the competition from 2025-26 for five years. Matches are produced by ESPN. New for this season is “The Hangout”, which Disney described in a media release before the first round of fixtures as a live studio show billed as a “new match-day experience for fans, delivering pre-match build-up, half-time analysis and post-match reaction”. The same release said the show would “combine expert analysis with fresh perspectives and fan engagement”.
Alex Scott hosted the first show of the season, alongside former England forward Lianne Sanderson, content creators Alex Bailess and Tyra Mills, and a dog called Barley Boy. There was no explanation for the dog’s presence on set other than his 137,000 Instagram followers. Scott and Shebahn Aherne will alternate hosting duties throughout the competition. The coverage also featured a vegetable platter being served and a rotating floor.
Other problems on the night included players waiting to be interviewed but unable to hear questions from the studio, camera shots in which cushions blocked the view of Scott, and audio synchronisation issues. Italian reporter Roberto Perrone, in Milan for Inter Milan’s match against Swedish side Hacken, also encountered audio problems, and when the sound returned viewers were shown a non-football-themed quiz, with questions ranging from types of pasta to Italy’s biggest city.
The evening drew criticism from viewers who felt the presentation detracted from the football. “We want women’s football to be taken seriously, yet coverage like this undermines that,” one fan wrote on X. “Personality and fun have their place, but not at the expense of the football. The game doesn’t need gimmicks to make it interesting. Give the players, the competition and the football itself the same focus, analysis and respect we expect elsewhere in the sport. Women’s football is more than capable of being the main event.”
Another viewer argued that the problem lay in how the coverage is structured. “I think a lot of the problem with the debates in women’s football broadcasting over analysis and punditry vs content creation and gimmicky fun, is that in men’s football you can get both – and in different shows,” they wrote. “In women’s football, you get one show, and so they try to do it all.”
Megan Feringa, a journalist for the Athletic, said: “Watching Disney’s coverage is like going in and out of a lucid dream. Why is there a dog? Why is the couch spinning? Why do the adverts cut right into analysis?” Flo Lloyd-Hughes, a broadcaster and writer for the Cutback, added: “Why does women’s football coverage always have to be so gimmicky? It’s the Champions League, not Blue Peter. 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.”
The reaction follows earlier scrutiny of how women’s football is presented. Last November, concerns were raised over the professionalism and legitimacy of the Women’s League Cup quarter-final and semi-final draw, which was conducted by social media influencer GK Barry. In the same month, Sky Sports scrapped its new female-focused TikTok channel, Halo, after it faced a backlash online, with its posts described as “patronising” and “sexist”.
Disney+ coverage continues on Wednesday, with Chelsea hosting Austria Wien at 20:00 BST.