It is not just as a father of daughters, as a lover of sport or as a passionate believer in justice that I am disappointed by the reaction of the Premier League to the content of the emails written by Richard Scudamore. I am struggling to think of any other comparable position that would not be deemed untenable within that industry or organisation after the tone and content of Scudamore’s utterances.

If for instance it had been the chairman of the BBC? The fact that they were not intended for a wider audience than the recipient is irrelevant. He has been intemperate or arrogant enough to think he can say things via a notoriously leaky medium – the internet – that are not only entirely contrary to his public utterances about women in football but puerile, laddish and not dissimilar to the offensive utterances that damaged the careers of Andy Gray and Richard Keys in 2011.

Because Scudamore has ‘done a good job for the Premier league’ and is higher up the pecking order in that male dominated organisation, it seems that his reassurance that he doesn’t really think like that is enough. If what he says is true then it is doubly offensive that he wrote what he wrote. Bear in mind that writing takes a little more effort than it does to make an unfortunate laddish put down in a pub with like-minded mates.

I would like the man running my favourite sport to be bright and sensitive enough to think beyond the need to be seen bantering with a lawyer (for heaven’s sake) about the ability and sexual attributes of women in the sport.

I would have had more respect for the man if he had fallen on his sword in the interests of establishing the Premier League as the progressive and inclusive organisation it is allegedly trying to become.

And yes the ladies involved in the higher level of football have come out in support of Scudamore.

No surprise there. They have had to fight to get to where they have in the male dominated sport. They don’t want to draw attention to themselves in the way they would have to in order to truly hold Scudamore to account. Listening on the radio to some of the apologists for him has served only to confirm that talk is cheap and action often lags a long way behind mission statements.