Athlete or Influencer? Why Are Female Athletes Unfairly Criticized

Here is everything you need to know about the athlete-versus-influencer debate: it is a trap. It has always been a trap. And the fact that it is aimed almost exclusively at women tells you exactly what it is really about.

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The debate goes like this. A female athlete builds a massive social media following. She posts content that isn't purely about her sport — lifestyle shots, brand partnerships, a photo in a swimsuit. Her follower count climbs past her on-field statistics in the public consciousness. And suddenly, the internet convenes its tribunal. Is she really an athlete? Is she taking it seriously? Is she more interested in the sponsorship deal than the scoreline?

We do not ask this question about Cristiano Ronaldo, who has 640 million Instagram followers and has turned his personal brand into a multi-billion-dollar empire while continuing to play at the highest level. We do not ask it about LeBron James, who built SpringHill Company, produced films and documentaries, and invested in a media portfolio worth hundreds of millions — while also winning NBA championships. Their business empires are treated as evidence of genius. Their brand-building is what the kids should aspire to.

When a female athlete does it, we call it a distraction.

Nobody is better positioned to illuminate this debate than Alisha Lehmann. The 27-year-old Swiss forward is simultaneously the most-followed women's footballer on Instagram — with 15.7 million followers — and one of the most scrutinised athletes in the sport. She has become the canvas onto which every anxiety about women's sports, beauty, and commercial visibility gets projected. And she has handled it, publicly and repeatedly, with more grace than her critics deserve.

Who actually is Alisha Lehmann?

Lehmann started playing at nine years old with FC Konolfingen in Switzerland. She was talented enough to earn a move to the Women's Super League at 19, signing with West Ham United in 2018 after catching the eye of the coaching staff at the UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship. She was part of the West Ham squad that won the Women's FA Cup that same season. She then made more than 50 appearances for Aston Villa before moves to Juventus and now FC Como Women in Italy.

She has represented the Swiss national team at the senior level since 2019 and was selected for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 squad. She was selected as a torchbearer for the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics — an honour that is not awarded to influencers, but to athletes of significance. She competes at the highest level of the women's game. That is the starting point for any honest conversation about who she is.

She also, undeniably, has 16.7 million Instagram followers. Her feed is a deliberate, carefully constructed blend of football content, lifestyle photography, brand partnerships, and personal posts. Her profiles are a colourful mix of training photos, insights into her private life, fashion posts, and selfies — making her approachable and sparking huge interest far beyond the classic football fan. She has commercial partnerships with major brands. She has modelled underwear and sportswear. She is, by any measure, a multi-hyphenate public figure operating at the intersection of sport, fashion, and digital culture.

This is where the tribunal convenes.

After Juventus won the Serie A title in 2025, a viral TikTok pointed out that Lehmann had scored only three goals that season, yet was front and centre in the celebrations — leading the team in a dance a

nd generating more coverage than many of her teammates who had contributed far more on the pitch. This lit up the comments sections. "She literally contributed nothing to the season but is front and centre like the main character," wrote one widely-liked reply. The video gathered 41,500 likes.

The criticism has layers that deserve to be examined separately. There is a legitimate sporting argument: that Lehmann's output on the pitch, by traditional metrics, does not always match her cultural footprint. Three goals in a Serie A season is a modest return for a starting forward. That is a fair conversation to have, and it is one that would happen — with appropriate proportionality — for any forward underperforming.

But that is not primarily what the debate is about. If it were, the criticism would be statistical and specific. Instead, it reaches into her appearance, her femininity, her makeup, her swimwear posts, her relationship history. Beyond the issue of makeup, these comments reflect a broader debate about the role of image in women's sports. Unlike their male counterparts, female athletes are frequently judged not only on their performance, but also on their appearance, their clothing style, and their social media presence. That is not a sporting critique. That is something else entirely.

Cristiano Ronaldo has turned his personal brand into a genuine empire — CR7 clothing, CR7 hotels, CR7 fragrances, a documentary series, a global sponsorship portfolio that runs to hundreds of millions annually. While male athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo face minimal backlash for cosmetic enhancements, women like Lehmann are scrutinised for any deviation from a "natural" ideal. Ronaldo's commercial operations are celebrated as ambition. His personal grooming is admired. His social media presence — with 640 million followers — is considered a mark of his greatness, not evidence that he's "not really" a footballer.

This is not a coincidence. There exists, in sports culture, an implicit and deeply held belief that female athletes are permitted to be commercially valuable only in ways that do not draw attention to their femininity. They are allowed to have sponsors, as long as those sponsorships are for protein powder or trainers. They are allowed to be attractive, as long as they appear embarrassed by it. They are allowed to have large social media followings, as long as the content is limited to clips of them playing. The moment a female athlete uses her platform in ways that foreground her identity as a woman — her fashion, her relationships, her body on her own terms — the credibility questions begin.

The comments about Lehmann range from envy to open hatred, often sexist. It seems that many have a problem with a professional athlete being attractive and showing it, and even earning money from it. That framing is worth holding onto: earning money from it. Lehmann is not doing anything that male athletes do not do routinely. The problem, for a certain constituency of critics, is that she is a woman doing it.

Here is the thing the critics miss entirely when they demand that female athletes keep their heads down and stick to the sport: visibility is not separate from the growth of women's football. It is the mechanism of that growth.

Lehmann's Instagram following of 15.7 million puts her ahead of global stars like Alex Morgan (9.6 million) and Alexia Putellas (3.2 million). Her popularity extends far beyond football, making her a true ambassador for women's sport. Putellas has won the Ballon d'Or twice. She is arguably the greatest player in the world. She has 3.2 million Instagram followers. Lehmann, by the cold logic of social media reach, is introducing more people to the existence of women's football than any other player on the planet.

She uses her platform to raise awareness about issues such as equality in sport, female representation, and mental health. Her investment in her personal brand has allowed her to sign contracts with major brands, strengthening the link between sport and communication. She has spoken publicly about wage inequality in football, about the misogyny that still meets women who dare to play. In a 2025 media appearance, she pointed out that she and her male counterparts often dedicate the same effort to their craft, but the pay gap remains enormous. She uses her platform, with its enormous reach, to say things that matter.

The version of Alisha Lehmann that critics want to exist — the one who posts only match clips and press conference quotes, keeps her personal life hidden, never models, and gratefully accepts a fraction of what her male equivalents earn in exchange for being considered a "real" athlete — is not a compromise. It is a capitulation. It asks women in sport to make themselves smaller so that they can be accepted on terms that were set without them.

The question "athlete or influencer" is built on a false binary. It assumes that commercial activity and athletic seriousness are mutually exclusive — and it applies that assumption only to women. The real questions, if we want to be honest, are simpler: does she train? Yes. Does she compete at the professional level? Yes. Does she represent her country? Yes. Everything else is noise.

Women's sports do not have a visibility problem because there are too many players like Alisha Lehmann. They have a visibility problem because there are not yet enough platforms, media hours, and cultural infrastructure to match the talent that already exists. Every female athlete who uses social media to build a following, every brand deal that funds a career, every lifestyle post that earns a new follower who might then watch a match — these are not distractions from the project of growing women's sport. They are the project.

Alisha Lehmann has found a way to connect both worlds — whether everyone likes it or not. It is often forgotten: she is still a hard-working professional footballer who plays in a top league. Her success online does not necessarily diminish her performance on the pitch.