Sports
Christina Unkel interview: Team president, attorney, app creator and Euros breakout star
Follow live coverage of England vs Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semi-final today
The breakout star of this summer’s European Championship only played her first game on Monday.
ITV’s referee analyst Christina Unkel speaks to The Athletic before setting off for the media match against the BBC in Berlin. First, she will meet up with Jill Scott for a coffee — one of the players she booked in her former life as an elite referee is now a colleague — and on Wednesday she will be on hand for coverage of England’s semi-final against the Netherlands. She has worked on all of ITV’s matches during the tournament, plus their highlight shows.
It is a wonder she finds the time. Unkel is also the president of Tampa Bay Sun, a new team due to play in the inaugural USL Super League season starting in August, a founder of fitness apps and a litigation attorney. She is well known to U.S. viewers, having featured on Fox, CBS and Paramount Plus’s football coverage, but Euro 2024 has marked her UK breakthrough and she has garnered widespread acclaim for her calm authority.
The 37-year-old is whipsmart and her contributions have often made for the most compelling parts of ITV’s half-time and post-match coverage. Unkel is often challenged by pundits Gary Neville, Ian Wright, Roy Keane and Ange Postecoglou, who might keep abreast of football’s changing laws but still do not like all of them.
“That’s the whole point of why I did this in the first place,” she says. “I encourage them. Everyone’s like: ‘I feel like they’re beating up on you.’ Not at all! Ask me questions! If they’re struggling with those questions as professional footballers, the general population is struggling.
“If I just wanted to collect a paycheque and walk out, I probably would be cringing. But those are the opportunities I desire. Those are the conversations that IFAB (the International Football Association Board, the game’s lawmakers) might need to hear from the football community.
“They have such a high level of football understanding and sometimes they don’t even know — justifiably so — some of the nuances we have. You can take a look at the laws of the game, but the nuances or the application — what I call the case application — aren’t included.”
Unkel began her own refereeing career at the age of 10. She had been the kind of player to feel unjustifiably aggrieved with officials, to the extent that her coach told her she needed to be quiet or take a course and actually learn the rules. The treatment of referees was kinder when she was coming up — had it not been, she says, she is not sure she would have stayed in the game — and when faced with any kind of sexist invective about getting back in the kitchen, she would shrug it off with a wish that her detractors would come up with something more original.
Primarily, she was focused on becoming the kind of official she had yearned to encounter as a player.
“Being a female soccer player, people would be assigned to our games and either not take it seriously or think they’re not much of an issue,” she says. “For somebody to not care about our game — because it was a girls’ game — drove me nuts. We still deserved fair treatment and quality and care and concern. There are times you just remember a ref for how good of a job they did. I always wanted to be remembered for that.”
Unkel graduated from college to find there was little infrastructure for women’s professional soccer in the United States. Playing abroad was not an option when pay was still so poor. Officiating was the best way to stay involved — even if in the early days of her refereeing career the pay was so paltry she would actually lose money giving up her day job.
Her goal was to reach the point where she could referee sides such as the U.S. Women’s National Team. Those were the most thrilling games of her career “because of the environment that they were creating. I’m a referee and no one’s obviously going to come to see me except for my parents, but you were part of that tapestry in some way”.
Christina Unkel, pictured in 2014, during her on-field refereeing career (Stanley Chou – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
She took her first television role before the 2019 Women’s World Cup, taking on 53 games for Fox Sports. She joined up a day before Fox announced their line-up. It meant giving up her role on the FIFA Panel and, having made that sacrifice, she was keen that her involvement amounted to more than just critiquing her former colleagues. That, she says, is why “this role is very taboo”, although the stigma is shifting.
“Not many people had done this role in the way I envisioned it, which was to educate the masses,” she says. “If the referee got a decision correct, break it down: here’s the play, here’s the law, here’s what should have been the answer. It’s very rare that officials get something incorrect just because it’s a pure misapplication of law. That’s easy to explain without destroying an official. My job is not to rate the referee; my job is to explain the laws.
“When I stepped into that role, it did ostracise some people. Some friends of mine didn’t agree.” They came around when she was picked up by CBS for their Champions League coverage in 2020 and they could see what she was trying to do. This tournament has underlined that it’s worthwhile work.
“It’s been a little enlightening to me to see so many people tearing down English referees but they’ve actually been some of the best-performing officials in this tournament,” Unkel explains. “To just enlighten people so they are making opinions, or decisions that are more fully educated, is really the goal.”
At ITV, she has the benefit of a full-time video operator to help her select clips for analysis; for domestic matches, she pulls up the best angle herself. The pair treat her secluded studio booth “as if I were stepping into a VAR room” and it helps that Unkel was part of the first cohort of referees trained in VAR in 2017, with Howard Webb as her instructor.
That boot camp involved sitting in video-operating booths with timers in the corner of the footage she was watching. “At 10 or 15 seconds, it goes from green to yellow, and then it goes to red at, like, 30. So it does feel like you’re in a spy movie about to blow up.” It was good preparation for the three to five seconds she has in-game to explain decisions. “Sometimes I have to break down something I’ve learned over 20 years. What are the one or two really important things you want people to walk away with so they can connect it very quickly without having taken all the referee courses I did?
“You know what kind of checks are being reviewed. ‘Here’s what I need to look at, and here’s what I need to break down.’ And as soon as I have that answer, I’m always like: ‘Let me in! Let me in!’ If they bring me in before I have the answer, I’m commentating while I’m looking for it: ‘The VAR is looking for this specific angle that’s going to be showing this.‘ I’m basically running the audience through the exact same mental protocol that’s happening in live time.”
Among the most divisive features of the tournament are the semi-automated offsides, facilitated by additional cameras and limb-tracking technology, which denied Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku three goals in his opening two matches.
“As a striker, I’m never going to be able to accept that kind of offside,” Wright said in the aftermath of Belgium’s 2-0 group-stage win over Romania. Unkel went on to outline how certain players might have to adjust their running style to stay within the law. Spurs manager Postecoglou has also been critical of laws now punishing what previously would have been ignored. “I don’t think that is why we brought in technology,” he has said.
“We’re just in this Goldilocks period of figuring out how we want to use our technology to better the game,” Unkel says now. “Everyone hates toenail offsides. Players hate it. Refs hate it. Fans hate it. Coaches hate it.
“We see these toenail offsides because of law and the technology that’s given: the semi-automated offsides and the lines that drop. In Major League Soccer, even to this day, they can’t afford those lines that drop. We have not had issues in Major League Soccer about toenail offsides because when you do VAR in Major League Soccer, if it is really close and you truly can’t tell, you leave it be. The goal stands. It remains that way and nobody is upset by it. They might have been off by a centimetre.
“Whereas here, we know they’re off by a centimetre. And that’s what really frustrates people. I kind of laugh and advocate for: competitors and competitions can save millions of dollars if they just get rid of the offside lines. The technology is really expensive. Importantly, (in punditry) now you get someone to be able to use the naked eye to say: does that make any sense? Would that be taken back or not? How close is that?”
The coverage has exposed a gap between expectations of the technology and how it has worked in practice. Unkel is keen to point out that each law change is deliberate and meticulous; debate at major European tournaments can accelerate changes to laws but, generally speaking, tweaks take a couple of years before they are signed off. They go through technical and practical advisory boards, directors for IFAB, FIFA representatives, players, coaches and confederations.
“When people are like, ‘I wasn’t expecting this,’ either you or somebody from your coaching staff needs to be focusing on this because it does affect how you might be setting up for games or understanding the implications,” says Unkel. “You can voice an opinion prior to application so that we have a better understanding of how it’s going to play in the game, and not do so after the fact.”
With Unkel on their case, they just might.
(Top photo: ITV)
Sports
Ed Orgeron on who should be out of College Football Playoff, Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU and his coaching plans
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The College Football Playoff begins Friday, and emotions are running high for several fan bases.
Notre Dame was ranked 10th in the penultimate CFP rankings but missed the playoffs to both Alabama, which lost a third game, and Miami, which were ranked lower going into championship weekend but beat Notre Dame during the season, which apparently took precedence.
Ed Orgeron did not have to worry about his playoff status while he was coaching LSU to a title amid a perfect season in 2019, but he has an idea of who should be in and out this year.
LSU coach Ed Orgeron runs off the field with his team before an NCAA college football game against Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Clubb)
“I don’t think a team with three losses ought to be playing for the national championship. Notre Dame should have got in ahead of Alabama,” Orgeron told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
Bama getting in prompted calls of bias and/or collusion, considering the playoff is broadcast on ESPN and ABC, the same network that the SEC has a major media rights deal with.
“The SEC was dominant. But now, the Big Ten, Big 12 are catching up. They’ve had the national champ a couple of years now. I don’t know what’s happened with the SEC and bias, all that stuff. Is there a chance that they have it? I’m not going to get into that. But I do know this — they’re very strong,” Orgeron added.
The SEC figures to remain strong, as Lane Kiffin went from Ole Miss to Orgeron’s former LSU in a controversial move. Orgeron, though, said Kiffin, his former colleague at Tennessee and USC, made the right move, given he hardly had a choice.
Mississippi Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin (left) and LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron (right) shake hands after a game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. (Petre Thomas/USA TODAY Sports)
ED ORGERON GIVES ADVICE TO SHERRONE MOORE AFTER SAGA THAT LEFT HIM FIRED, ARRESTED
“Look, the timing of it, when he did it, that’s his choice. But he had to do it at that time to get the job he wanted. The calendar is wrong in college football. I wish they had the rule like the NFL, that you cannot talk to a coach until their season is over,” Orgeron said.
As for advice to get LSU back to the promised land?
“Keep on doing what you’re doing. He knows what he’s doing. Recruit, evaluate like he’s doing. He’s the king of the transfer portal. He’ll be able to dominate the SEC like he’s been doing. Keep on doing what you’re doing.”
Orgeron last coached in 2021, but his career is certainly not over. In fact, he expects to be somewhere soon, potentially even facing Kiffin.
Then-LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron talks with quarterback Joe Burrow after a victory against the Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff national championship game at Mercedes-Benz Superdome. (Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports)
“We’ve been in touch with people. I would take a head coaching job, doesn’t have to be a head coaching job. I’ll take a D-line coach or a recruiting coordinator, but the right situation hasn’t been coming up. I’m in a good position where I could take a job, I don’t have to take a job, but if the right situation comes up, I’m definitely taking it and going to coach. I do believe within the next month something may open, and I’ll be coaching again.”
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SEATTLE — In a matter of minutes, the home of the Seattle Seahawks went from a painfully quiet Lumen “Library” to a rollicking madhouse that sent seismologists scrambling for their ground-motion sensors.
Call it the Sheesh-Quake Game.
In a historic comeback, the Seahawks dug their way out of a 16-point, fourth-quarter ditch to beat the Rams in overtime, 38-37.
Oh, the visitors will agonize over some of the bizarre calls, some deserving of further explanation from the NFL. An ineligible-man-downfield call that wiped out a Rams touchdown when they were a yard away from the end zone? That had people scratching their heads. Then there was that do-or-die two-point conversion that seemingly fell incomplete… but later was reversed. More on that in a moment.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went wrong for the Rams in their 38-37 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on Thursday night.
When the Rams wincingly rewind the video of the collapse, they’ll be peering through the cracks in their fingers.
You’ve heard of a no-look pass? This was a no-look finish.
As soothing wins go, this was a warm bubble bath for the Seahawks, who secured a playoff berth and assumed the driver’s seat in the race for the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
“You hear people late in the year have losses, and you hear people come up here and say, like, ‘Man, this is going to be a good thing for us,’” said Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp, a onetime Rams hero. “It’s much better to be up here right now saying this is going to be a good thing for us.”
Kupp atoned for his first-half fumble with a successful two-point conversion in the fourth quarter — the first of three in a row for the Seahawks — and a 21-yard reception on the winning drive in overtime.
“If you find a way to get a win when you do turn the ball over three times, you do end up down 16 points, or whatever it was, in the fourth quarter, just finding ways to win games when the odds are against you and things aren’t going right — finding a way to fight back — it’s going to be a good thing for us,” Kupp said. “A good thing for us to draw on.”
The Rams are sifting through the debris of a different lesson. It was a reminder that this charmed season, with Matthew Stafford in line to win his first Most Valuable Player honor, can come crashing down at any moment. There’s no more smooth glide path to Santa Clara for the Super Bowl.
As good as it was for most of the game, picking off Sam Darnold twice and sacking him four times, the Rams defense failed to hold up when it counted most. Shades of the three-point loss at Carolina.
Darnold will have a story to tell. He exorcised a lot of demons. The Rams sacked him nine times in the playoffs last season when Darnold was playing for Minnesota, and intercepted six of his passes in two games this season.
“It’s not great when you have interceptions and turnovers, you want to limit that,” said Darnold, the former USC star. “But all you can do is fight back. For us, I was just going to continue to plug away.”
Darnold came through when it counted, completing five passes on the winning drive, then finding the obscure tight end Eric Saubert — his fourth option — wide open in the end zone on the triumphant conversion.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold looks to pass against the Rams in the first half Thursday.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
The second of the three conversions was the game’s most controversial moment. The Seahawks needed it to forge a 30-30 tie with a little more than six minutes remaining in regulation.
Darnold fired a quick screen pass to his left, trying to get the ball to Zach Charbonnet. Rams defender Jared Verse jumped the route and knocked down the pass. Everyone thought the play was dead, including Charbonnet, who casually jogged across the goal line and picked up the ball as it lay in the end zone.
That proved critical because officials — after what seemed like an eternity — ruled that Darnold had thrown a backward pass and the ball was live when Charbonnet picked it up. Therefore, a fumble recovery and successful conversion, tying the game.
Asked later if it felt like a backward pass, Darnold had a half-smile and said, “Um, yeah. It felt like I threw it kind of right on the side. I’m glad Charbs picked it up, and that turned out to be a game-changing play.”
Was that designed to be a backward pass?
“It just happened to be backwards,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily talked about. We were just trying to get it in down there on the goal line.”
The Seahawks were lined up to kick off when officials announced that, upon review, the previous play was successful. Suddenly, the most improbable of come-from-victories was within reach.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, when the home team was trailing, 30-14, the Amazon Prime crew had to do some vamping to keep viewers engaged. Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit told some Kurt Warner stories from the “Greatest Show on Turf” days. Hey, it had to be more interesting than this game.
Michaels delivered an obscure stat: When leading by 15 points or more in the fourth quarter, the Rams were 323-1.
Informed of that, Seahawks running back Cam Akers — once shown the door by the Rams — had a wry response.
“Now, they’ve lost two,” he said.
Celebration in one locker room. Silence in another.
Do you believe in meltdowns?
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Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was released about a week after the former Michigan Wolverines football coach was fired from his job and arrested on several charges.
Fox News Digital obtained the booking photo of Moore on Thursday. The picture showed a red-eyed Moore appearing downcast in the Washtenaw County Jail in Michigan.
Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was obtained by Fox News Digital on Dec. 18, 2025. (Washtenaw County Jail)
The photo’s release came as new details emerged in the Moore scandal, including allegations that he “had a long history of domestic violence” against the staffer with whom he allegedly maintained an inappropriate, yearslong relationship.
Court documents obtained by Fox News Digital revealed allegations made by the staffer’s attorney, Heidi Sharp, on the day that Moore allegedly entered her home without permission, which later resulted in his arrest.
Moore appeared in a Washtenaw County court on Friday, where his bond was set at $25,000 and included several conditions, including no contact with the alleged victim in the case. A not guilty plea was entered for him.
Prosecutors detailed the alleged events that led up to Moore’s arrest, including that Moore had engaged in an “intimate relationship” with the Michigan staffer for “a number of years” and that the woman had broken up with him two days before his arrest.
Former Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore appears via video in court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Dec. 12, 2025. (Ryan Sun/AP Photo)
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL RECRUITS DE-COMMIT FROM PROGRAM AMID SHERRONE MOORE SCANDAL
Prosecutors accused Moore of contacting the staffer via phone calls and texts after the breakup, prompting the victim to contact the University of Michigan and cooperate in its investigation. Moore was subsequently fired from his position as head football coach, which prosecutors said prompted him to show up at the woman’s home.
Moore then allegedly “barged” his way into the residence, grabbed a butter knife and a pair of scissors and then began threatening his own life. According to prosecutors, Moore allegedly told the staffer, “My blood is on your hands” and “You ruined my life.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Moore’s attorney for comment.
Moore faces a felony charge of home invasion in the third degree and two misdemeanor charges of stalking and breaking and entering without the owner’s permission. He was released on bond and is due back in court on Jan. 22.
Sherrone Moore, then-of the Michigan Wolverines, looks on during the second half against the Maryland Terrapins at SECU Stadium on November 22, 2025 in College Park, Maryland. (Chris Bernacchi/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
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Moore took over as head coach for Jim Harbaugh when he left to take the Los Angeles Chargers’ job.
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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