Laura Woods has issued a response after an article criticised her presenting during Saturday’s Champions League final.
The 38-year-old is the lead presenter for TNT Sports and ITV Sport. She also previously worked for Sky Sports and has made no secret of the fact she’s a passionate Arsenal supporter.
Woods presented TNT Sports’ live coverage of last weekend’s Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest.
Recently-crowned Premier League winners Arsenal went agonisingly close to securing their first ever Champions League title at the Puskas Arena but lost on penalties.
A damning article in the Telegraph by Alan Tyers on Monday is titled: ‘TNT treated the Champions League final like an Arsenal home broadcast’. Tyers writes:
“Only one team out there were trying to play football but, from the TV coverage, it felt like there was only one team out there at all.
"From Arsenal fan presenter Laura Woods referring to Mikel Arteta as ‘The Boss’ after interviewing him to a pundit roster loaded lopsidedly in favour of the north Londoners at the expense of PSG balance, the Champions League final on TNT Sports was all Arsenal, all the time."
Tyers continued: “Add in an unnecessary infusion of celeb Gooners pre-game (I was wondering where Romesh Ranganathan had got to - he hadn’t been on TV for almost quarter of an hour), and this broadcast could hardly have been more pro-Arsenal had it been on the club’s own website.”
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Woods Responds to Damning Article
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Woods has responded to Tyers’ article on X (Twitter), replying: “Hahahaha. Cheers, Alan. Can’t really help it if my team makes the final and I’m contracted to work that show. But you knew that.”
When Arsenal supporter Laura Kirk-Francis said ‘fan presenter Laura Woods’ was “so f***ing disrespectful”, Woods replied: “Wait until they see how ‘biased’ the World Cup coverage on both ITV and BBC is. Hint. It’ll be mostly English…”
Laura Woods tweet
Another X user said to Woods: “Laura you did well and you should be happy with that but the rest from the commentary to the pundits was way too over the top. You had Julien Laurens there and absolutely nothing from him once match kicked off. It was cringe, worst ever of an English team in a final.”
Defending TNT Sports’ coverage, Woods replied: “We’d never invite him to commentate, he’s not a commentator or a footballer to offer match punditry. Post match we interviewed Luis Enrique, Nasser Al-Khelaifi and a number of PSG players. [Steven] Gerrard and [Owen] Hargreaves were also part of the whole show. Honestly this is tiresome.”
Laura Woods tweet
Woods will be part of ITV Sport’s team for the 2026 World Cup finals, which get underway on June 11.
She will be one of the broadcaster’s lead presenters alongside Mark Pougatch, working alongside a host of top-name pundits including Roy Keane, Ian Wright and Gary Neville.