Jeremy Doku Prioritizes Fatherhood Over World Cup Duty

Jeremy Doku has drawn his line in the sand. Football can wait. Fatherhood cannot.

The Manchester City winger, 24, is due to become a father next month and has told Belgium he wants to leave the World Cup camp to be at the birth – even if the Red Devils are still in the tournament.

“If you ask me what I want, my answer is that nobody wants to miss the birth of their first child,” he told Reuters.

A simple sentence, but one that slices straight through football’s usual rhetoric about sacrifice and duty.

He knows the game doesn’t work in straight lines. “I also know that football involves many other considerations. I know the federation supports its players and understands their situations. We'll see what we can do.”

That tension – between the demands of the sport and the pull of home – has exploded into a full-blown debate.

A TV rant, and a swift backlash

The flashpoint came from French television. On L'Équipe’s channel, presenter France Pierron tore into the idea of Doku leaving camp, branding a father “completely useless” at the time of birth and calling the moment itself “disgusting”.

The words landed like a brick.

Within hours, L'Équipe issued a statement apologising, stressing that Pierron’s comments were “very far removed” from the organisation’s values. The presenter apologised as well, and reports in France said she would not be fronting her show on Monday.

The reaction across football, and far beyond, was almost unanimous. This wasn’t just about one winger and one World Cup. It was about what the sport expects men to be.

Belgium’s winger, a father in waiting

On the pitch, Doku has already been central to Belgium’s campaign. He played 86 minutes of their opening 1-1 draw with Egypt in Group G, his direct running again a key outlet. Illness kept him out of the 0-0 draw with Iran, but his importance to the side is not in doubt.

Off the pitch, the clock is ticking. His wife, Shireen, is due to give birth in the second week of July. If Belgium progress, that could collide directly with a World Cup quarter-final.

For most footballers, that’s the kind of fixture they dream about as kids. For Doku, it would clash with something he insists matters more.

“It only happens once”

Players know this world better than anyone, and the support has been emphatic.

England striker Ollie Watkins, a father of two, didn’t bother dressing his opinion up. “I think someone labelled it disgusting and I think for a start that's not a way to label a birth,” he said.

He’d seen it close up. “I've seen what my wife had to go through and that was quite smooth sailing but I know family members and friends that haven't had it that way.

“It only happens once – welcoming your first child to the world – and it is a blessing. There's a lot of times where you're away from family and friends during the season and it's very difficult, so to miss that would be tough and I see where he's coming from.”

Watkins’ words cut against the old caricature of the unshakeable professional, the player who never blinks and never breaks stride. Here was a current England international saying out loud what many have long felt: some games you can replace. Some days you can’t.

“Players as people, not just athletes”

Inside the sport’s structures, there is at least an acknowledgement that the balance is wrong.

The Professional Footballers’ Association weighed in, stressing that the demands on players cannot come at the cost of “fundamental family moments”.

“While every situation is different, we believe players should be supported in balancing their professional responsibilities with important life events,” a PFA spokesperson said. “Supporting players as people, not just athletes, is an important part of creating a healthy professional working environment.”

The phrase “people, not just athletes” feels obvious. It also feels overdue.

Gladiators in boots

Away from the dressing room, the Fatherhood Institute – which campaigns for men to be hands-on fathers and caregivers – saw something deeper in the Doku debate.

“It makes me think of gladiators in the Colosseum,” deputy chief executive Jeremy Davies told BBC Sport. “We want these men to be these heroic figures who exist for our entertainment. They get paid lots of money but there are some things that are worth a lot more.”

The image is stark: footballers as modern gladiators, cheered, paid, scrutinised – and expected to keep performing regardless of what is happening in the delivery room back home.

Rules that protect mothers, silence on fathers

At governing-body level, the gap is written into the regulations.

Fifa rules set out that maternity leave for female footballers must be “a minimum period of 14 weeks’ paid absence”, with at least eight weeks after the birth. That’s clear, codified, and enforceable.

There is nothing comparable for paternity leave. No minimum standard. No universal guideline. Just a patchwork of club policies and individual decisions, leaving male players to improvise their way through some of the most important days of their lives.

So the sport ends up with workarounds and quiet compromises.

One club, for instance, stationed a car outside the stadium for a player whose partner was close to giving birth, ready to whisk him away the moment the final whistle blew. At a top-flight European side, a manager skipped travelling to a match entirely to stay with his wife as she prepared to deliver their second child.

He watched the game on television instead, plugged into the dugout by earpiece.

“I was on the earpiece to the bench and 10 minutes into the game she started getting labour pains,” said the manager, now working in the Championship. “We were 2-1 up at half-time but she was getting more into labour. I rang the hospital to say we were going to come in, but had to stop because we got a penalty.

“We scored, I knew we won the game, and we came right in. Our daughter was born two hours later.

“It's less common with managers because they are typically older but the game doesn't stop... you need to win the next game.”

The line is chilling in its honesty. The game doesn’t stop. Even when life begins.

Doku is not alone

Doku’s stance doesn’t break new ground. It joins a quiet, growing list of players and coaches who have refused to let football swallow everything.

In 2018, Fabian Delph briefly left England’s World Cup base in Russia to return home for the birth of his daughter. Pep Guardiola and the FA backed him, and Delph flew back to rejoin the squad after the delivery.

David Silva missed two Manchester City matches in 2018 following the premature arrival of his son, with the club openly supporting his decision to prioritise his family. Former Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea was granted extended leave in 2021 when his partner Edurne gave birth to their daughter during the Covid pandemic.

Others have had to settle for something more distant.

Just this weekend, Norway defender Leo Ostigard watched his son being born on FaceTime while at the World Cup. Ruben Neves went through something similar in January 2021, watching the birth of his third child on his phone from Wolves’ team bus after a 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace. His wife had returned to Portugal for medical reasons, and pandemic travel restrictions blocked his plans to join her.

These are not stories of indifference. They are stories of players caught between a plane, a match, and a maternity ward.

Across sport, the same choice

Football isn’t alone in wrestling with this.

Last week, cricketer Jamie Smith missed England’s second Test defeat by New Zealand after the birth of his daughter. England’s record wicket-taker Sir James Anderson once flew back between Ashes Tests in Australia in 2010 to be present for the birth of his second child.

In basketball, Anthony Edwards walked out at half-time of a game in 2024 to make sure he was there when his daughter arrived.

Tennis has its own chapter. In 2016, Sir Andy Murray said he would leave the Australian Open early if his wife Kim went into labour. “I'd be way more disappointed winning the Australian Open and not being at the birth of the child,” he said then. A Grand Slam trophy on one side, a hospital room on the other – and no hesitation about which mattered more.

Not everyone has chosen that road. Darts player Rob Cross missed the birth of his third child in 2017 as he chased qualification for the World Matchplay. A different decision, a different calculation, and one that still sits uneasily in a landscape where players are asked to give everything, all the time.

What kind of game does football want to be?

Strip away the noise around Doku and the question is simple: what does elite sport expect from its men when they become fathers?

The winger has made his own priorities clear. Family first. World Cup second. He knows the stakes, he knows the schedule, and he knows the scrutiny that comes with walking away from a tournament mid-flight.

But he also knows something else – that he will only welcome his first child into the world once.

If football can’t find room for that, what does that say about the game it claims to be?