Mary Earps has apologised for controversial passages of her new memoir that appeared to hit out at her former England head coach Sarina Wiegman and Lionesses team-mate Hannah Hampton.
The Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper’s autobiography detailed her retirement from the England set-up in passages which captured national attention, calling her manager’s handling of the end of her international career ‘bulls***’.
Earps also appeared to hint at a difficult relationship with her former No 2 – now the Lionesses’ No 1 – Hampton, claiming that her behaviour at the 2022 European Championship was ‘overwhelmingly considered disruptive and unreliable, with a risk of being destructive’.
But months later, Earps was keen to stress that she could understand why those sections of her book had been seized upon.
‘Now I can (understand why they garnered so much attention), for sure,’ Earps told Telegraph Sport. ‘Back then, I’ll be honest, I couldn’t.
‘I was in this headspace of like, ‘I don’t get it, why are we only talking about this and this?’ Now I can, after really deeply looking inwards.
Mary Earps has admitted her regret over passages in her autobiography which appeared to show a lack of respect towards her former England manager Sarina Wiegman
Ex-team-mate and fellow goalkeeper Hannah Hampton also found herself in the firing line
‘It really started a period of real deep reflection for me, having some tough conversations with people around me. Mostly I looked at myself. I look back to that time and I feel in a completely different space now.
;’I’m not a perfect person, I’m still learning and growing as a human being. You either evolve or repeat. I look back and I have to be accountable for the things that I know I could have done better. I can’t control other things, but there are things that I can control that I could have done better.’
In the ensuing media firestorm, Earps only added fuel to the controversy by attempting to underplay her comments as she went through with her publicity tour.
The 32-year-old described her book tour as a really ‘extreme time’ where public opinion ‘snowballed’ and left her under extreme scrutiny, which she struggled to cope with.
But as the dust settled, something Earps did seek to do was to apologise directly to Wiegman, calling the public misunderstanding of her feelings for her old manager ‘one of the most disappointing things’ of her press tour.
‘I would never, ever want anybody to question my respect and admiration for Sarina and everything that we’ve achieved together,’ Earps continued.
‘I have spoken to her. Of course, I want to keep that conversation private. We had an opportunity to speak face to face and I’m really grateful. It was a really positive conversation and I’m grateful to Sarina that we could make that happen.’
Admitting that she now recognised that she had been in ‘deep emotion’ while writing the book with the loss of identity and change she was experiencing following her international retirement, Earps revealed that she feels ‘so much calmer’ and ‘more herself’ with the passing of time.
‘When you can’t recognise that or think, how could I have done that differently?’ She continued. ‘How could I have done that better? How could I have articulated myself better?
‘I think you can get yourself down emotional rabbit holes of feeling super misunderstood and all that kind of stuff.
‘I wear my heart on my sleeve. I thought after international retirement, writing a book was clearly the next step. I thought, I can put my energy into that. What I thought would be a really positive outlet, wasn’t.’
Hampton did not directly address her fellow shot-stopper’s apparent feelings towards her following the release of the book, but the revelations seemingly split the England cohort between supporters of Earps and those who felt Hampton had been maligned.
One person to come out swinging in support of the player was her Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor, who called out Earps’ lack of class over her comments.
‘With what I read in terms of the comments coming from Mary Earps, it’s not acceptable to not show respect to your team-mates or managers,’ Bompastor said.
‘We are talking about Hannah, but also I want to raise my voice for Sarina (Wiegman). When you use some words about someone who won the Euros three times in a row, you should probably think about it before you speak.
‘If you look at what Hannah said in her previous comments about Mary Earps, then what Mary is saying about her now – one of them is class, and Hannah is the class one.’