World Cup
Jeremy Doku training in Belgium before the World Cup Fran Santiago/Getty Images
The Athletic has live coverage of Belgium vs Iran at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Elite sportspeople do enough media training to know that certain pronouncements will take on a life of their own after they are uttered. This did not, in the first instance, feel like one of those occasions.
Jeremy Doku, the Belgium and Manchester City winger, was speaking to the media before his country’s World Cup opener against Egypt. He was asked about his form, about the art of beating a man, about his hopes for the weeks ahead. Then, almost as an afterthought, the subject of his pregnant partner came up.
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“The baby could arrive before the end of the tournament,” said Doku. He explained that one of his team-mates, Brandon Mechele, is in a similar situation. Then he stated his desire to be present at the birth of his first child.
“I would like to be there,” he said. “No father would want to miss that. I know that the federation is aware and we will see what we can do.”
This did not seem controversial. It did not make the headline of the write-up on the website of Belgian newspaper Derniere Heure, which led on Doku’s assessment of his dribbling ability. And yet, over the days that followed, those three sentences sparked a backlash against the 24-year-old.
On Sunday, during World Cup television coverage, former Belgium international Gert Verheyen jokingly suggested that Doku would be a spare wheel at his child’s birth. “The only thing you can say is: ‘You’re doing great, keep going’,” said Verheyen.
On Monday, one of Doku’s old youth coaches criticised him for his position. “When you go to the World Cup, it’s a choice,” Peter Janssens told Belgian website VRT. “It might sound a bit harsh, but if you’re there, it’s because you have chosen to play. The baby will still be there afterwards.”
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The debate made the front page of newspaper De Morgen on Wednesday. “Generations clash over Doku’s dilemma,” ran the headline. Then, on Friday, the thing went global when France Pierron, a presenter on French television channel L’Equipe, weighed in.
“This outrages me,” Pierron said. “When you are lucky enough to appear at a World Cup, there are hundreds of footballers who would kill to be in your place. It’s a unique moment, a childhood dream come true. And you’re going to walk away from that to be at the birth of your child?
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“I’m sorry, the father serves no purpose. He is an extra. He just holds your hand and takes a photo. You’re going to take a 10-hour flight, exhaust yourself, go through the wringer emotionally… how can you return to play after that? The baby will always be there.”
At which point we should probably stop rolling around in this slop and say a formal hello. Yes, welcome to 2026 — like the Dark Ages, only with better teeth.
The first thing to say is that, in the case of Pierron specifically, there may well be a bit of exaggeration going on here. Hell of a drug, attention, and there was a knowingness to her tone that hinted that she may have been playing to the crowd. She has since apologised, as have L’Equipe. No matter. Her words represented a worldview that many subscribe to, namely that the demands of a sporting career should take precedence over one’s family.
There have been countless examples, in all manner of sports, of players being criticised for — or warned against — attending the birth of their children. The most famous example in football is that of Martin Allen, fined by his manager for missing a match so he could welcome his son into the world. That was in 1989 but there have been plenty of more recent cases.
So too in cricket, baseball and basketball. “It’s a baby, bro,” NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas said in 2024 when Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert missed a playoff game for the birth of his first child. “It’s going to be there when you get back.”
The baby will always be there. Let us leave aside, for a second, the awful yet very real possibility of complications and tragedy in childbirth, and grant the point. The baby, yes, would be waiting for Doku on his return. That is both true and beside the point.
Doku would not have been there, would not have experienced that moment. He would not have had the shared epiphany with his partner, felt the surge of hormones and emotions, the automatic, pre-rational connection with the baby. It is a hoary old cliche that the birth of a child — particularly your first child — is a life-changing event, but it happens to be true. There is no substitute for being in the room. You can’t get the same effect by hearing the story later. Or, with respect to Norway’s Leo Ostigard, by FaceTiming in.
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You are not there wholly for the baby, even if those early moments of bonding are important. You are, in part, there for yourself. More than anything, though, you are there for the person giving birth. The father serves no purpose. He is an extra. There is no denying that a partner can feel impotent in that moment, but the notion that being absent entirely would improve matters for anyone is laughable.
Childbirth rarely follows a script; even when it does, it is often intensely painful and stressful for the mother. As former boxer Brahim Asloum responded in that TV segment with Pierron, “You’re sending a message to your partner: I’m here in the trenches with you.”
What, though, of the wider point? You can, after all, accept that being present holds some value and nonetheless think that, if the sporting occasion is — according to some arbitrary scale — big enough, playing should be the priority.
This is, of course, a deeply personal thing. There have been countless examples of sportspeople choosing to skip the birth of a child to do their jobs. Some end up regretting it. A couple of players at this World Cup — Cucho Hernandez of Colombia and South Korea’s Kim Seung-gyu — have hinted that they may feel that way after being absent for their children’s births in the last couple of weeks. Some, we must assume, do not. This is not, however, something we should be overly prescriptive about.
That cuts both ways. If Doku wants to return to the UK, that is his business alone. All arguments to the contrary are just noise.
It must be said that they are — yes — deeply reactionary. You have chosen to play. People are allowed to change their minds or make choices that only apply within certain bounds. There are hundreds of footballers who would kill to be in your place. True, but irrelevant; Doku has absolutely no obligation to the footballers of the world. It’s a unique moment, a childhood dream come true. True, but these things can be overridden. And you know what else is a unique moment? The birth of your first child.
Doku, who looks set to miss Sunday’s game against Iran due to illness, will play a hundred big matches in his career. He has been to one World Cup; he could easily appear at two more. Let’s not talk about scarcity value here.
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Make no mistake: sport is a wonderful thing. It delights and diverts. It can seem incredibly important. It is also, for those who play it, a job. It won’t love you back. It won’t wish you a happy Father’s Day this morning. It won’t look after you when you’re old.
Alexis Carantonis, a columnist at Derniere Heure, got it exactly right in an editorial published this week. “If Jeremy Doku has to rush off to the maternity ward in the middle of the World Cup, there are only two things to say to him,” he wrote.
“Congratulations. And have a safe flight.”
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