Laura Woods has slammed Arsenal players for snubbing a young mascot after a viral clip from the club led to fury from fans on .
The Gunners posted a video on Twitter prior to at which showed a little girl getting an Arsenal shirt signed by members of the squad.
She was seen waiting outside the dressing room – holding the home shirt as players passed by to sign it – but appeared to have little to no interaction with the Arsenal stars.
The young fan looked desperate for eye contact or any kind of acknowledgement from her heroes and Arsenal supporter Woods felt it was a bad look for the club.
‘It doesn’t take a lot just to acknowledge somebody with a smile,’ she told .
‘I think that video is quite symptomatic of football and footballers now.
‘I actually messaged the club because I think they thought ‘they all stopped and signed the shirt this is great’.
‘Maybe that in itself is the problem that there’s now a disconnect between what you’re meant to do for those kinds of mascots.
‘The club did say it’s part of a matchday experience so that’s not the only interaction she had with the players.
‘She was a mascot, she went out on the pitch with them, she would have been on the pitch with them during warm-ups.
‘I think there’s a lot of things we don’t see, but that’s not excusing that video because I watched it a couple of times over and in my head thought ‘oh wait was it cut off afterwards, maybe they did [acknowledge her]’ and I went back and watched it and they didn’t.
‘Maybe it’s quite a good lesson, the reaction of the normal fans. It’s a pre-match routine and I get that, you’re in your bubble, but it doesn’t really take long just to make eye contact.
‘I watched that little girl and the way she’s waiting for eye contact or any sort of acknowledgement.
‘The Young Gunners get these incredible experiences so I’m hoping somewhere else along the line she had a great day and got that interaction but in that moment, what does it take to just say hi?’
