Prince William beefs with Michael Sheen about supporting Welsh football

On Tuesday, Prince William made a surprise appearance at the Three Lions’ football club to wish England’s team good luck in the FIFA World Cup. He had to wish them luck on English soil because he’s frankly too lazy to travel to Qatar for any of the Three Lions’ matches. That was what caught my eye, but people in Wales were really upset about the fact that the new “Prince of Wales” would use his title and his position as Football Association president to single out the English team and not the Welsh team, when the Welsh team is also playing the World Cup. It looks pretty bad for the new Prince of Wales that he A) doesn’t support Welsh teams and B) doesn’t speak Welsh or have any real connection to Wales. The people of Wales have been increasingly angry about the PoW title and they really don’t want William to be their symbol. Well, even though William made a visit to Wales yesterday, that wasn’t enough for Michael Sheen, who ripped William to shreds yet again. It was so bad that William ended up answering a question on the record about his support for the English team.

Welsh firebrand Michael Sheen has launched a war of words with Prince William after the outspoken anti-Brexit actor blasted the senior royal for handing out shirts to England’s World Cup squad despite holding the title of Prince of Wales – just two years after he said William should never be given his father’s old title.

Sheen, who slammed King Charles for visiting Wales on Owain Glyndŵr day during the mourning for the Queen in September, described William’s visit to the team’s training centre on Monday – where he gave them shirts for the FIFA tournament in Qatar – as ‘entirely inappropriate’. In a video shared online by the English FA, the Prince of Wales proclaimed to the World Cup squad: ‘We’re all rooting for you’.

But taking to Twitter, Sheen thundered: ‘He can, of course, support whoever he likes and as President of the FA his role makes visit understandable. But surely he sees holding the title Prince of Wales at the same time is entirely inappropriate? Not a shred of embarrassment? Or sensitivity to the problem here?’.

William then hit back at Sheen, telling reporters on a visit to Cardiff that he would be supporting both England and Wales. He said: ‘I support both. I support England more in the football, but Wales in the rugby. When I was growing up Wales didn’t get through to the tournaments but I will be supporting them all the way through the process. Getting to the World Cup is a big deal and I’ll be supporting Wales through the process.’

Prince William might find it tricky to navigate on the day when the two sides are set to meet: Nov. 29. Prince William spoke with Llywydd (presiding officer) Elin Jones in Wales, who showed him her Wales hat and noted, “They play each other in a few weeks’ time. But I won’t ask you.”

William replied, “No, it’s okay. I’m telling everyone I’m supporting both, definitely. I can’t lose. I’ve supported England since I’ve been quite small. But I support Welsh rugby, and that’s my way of doing it. I happily support Wales over England in the rugby, so I’ve got to be able to play carefully with my affiliations. I worry otherwise if I suddenly drop England to support Wales then that doesn’t look right for the sport either. So I can’t do that.”

“An England vs. Wales World Cup final would be the best, that would be pretty good,” he added. “I’m making sure I’m out there supporting Wales through all the process because I know it’s a big deal for Wales. When I was growing up, Wales weren’t getting through to the tournaments, so I had to make a choice. But we will have the rugby world cup in France next year, that will be a big deal.”

A royal source says it would be “quite disingenuous for someone who hasn’t been shy about supporting England his entire life to start changing his allegiances now,” on which most soccer fans would certainly concur. But William is said to be “delighted and proud of the Welsh team” for reaching their first World Cup finals in 64 years, and he is celebrating that achievement.

[From People & The Daily Mail]

It’s hilarious that this is the sole issue on which William wants to have integrity. Instead of saying “yes, I supported England when I was younger but now that I have the Wales title, it’s time for more diplomatic support.” Nope – William is digging in his heels and refusing to back down: he MUST support England because he’s always supported England, damn it! Instead of fidgeting and whinging about it, why not just… root for both teams? Jesus.

Photos courtesy of GEOFF CADDICK / Avalon and Eddie Keogh – The FA / Avalon.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

86 Responses to “Prince William beefs with Michael Sheen about supporting Welsh football”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. MrsFonzieFace says:

    I absolutely adore Michael Sheen and support his revolution wholeheartedly.

    • Nanz says:

      Gee. Sounds like a conflict of interest. How unusual for him.

      • Well Wisher says:

        Michael Sheen’s general argument is solid and specific. William’s recently acquired status as Prince of Wales is a national subjugation to Wales, he was not the Welsh peoples choice.

        What is William’s moral equivalent?

    • KT says:

      Sheen’s speech to the Welsh national team is online and unbelievably badass

      • TeamAwesome says:

        Yesss! Michael Sheen should be the actual Prince of Wales!

      • one of the marys says:

        I just watched it Wow you can tell the man is an actor, what delivery. I wonder what was the occasion? Perhaps something in the run up to the games? Yeah that’s passion. Poor William doesn’t stand a chance with this guy knocking him down. I love it

  2. Retta says:

    But Kaiser, he did say he supports both?

    • girl_ninja says:

      He said he supports Wales in rugby not football. He supports England in football. Rugby & football/soccer are not the same.

      She’s saying Willy could say he supports both football teams.

    • Coldbloodedjellydonut says:

      No report of him going to see the Welsh team. He’s paying lip service to Wales and actually showing up for England. Pretty much his m.o. for everything.

    • PunkPrincessPhD says:

      “support” is doing a lot of work here. Like “keen” or “listening”.

      William’s support for the English team through the visit and video shared to social media is tangible and highly visible. His “support” for the Welsh team is theoretical.

      • Debbie says:

        Shall we just say that William is “keen” to support Welsh football. Seriously, he was talking out of both sides of his mouth up there.

    • BeanieBean says:

      He supports the process of Wales being in this tournament. I think. Whatever that means!

  3. Maxine Branch says:

    The men in that family are nothing more than Tory puppets who can not help but put their foot in their mouths, such idiotic tools and an embarrassment. This man looks as dumb as his responses always are.

    • Chloe says:

      I have to agree because even his answer was weird: i support both. I support england in football and wales in rugby

      ?????

      The welsh rugby team isn’t going to the FIFA world cup now are they? How is this supposed to help?

  4. Dulcinea says:

    How can this man not have had any lessons in diplomacy? This is so dumb even by tribal football/soccer standards.

    • Smart&Messy says:

      Right? He is unbelievably bad at all this. He is all about reacting, back pedalling, complaining, and explaining. And not even subtle about those.

    • taris says:

      pegasus and his wife ms buttons are so coddled and so lazy that they consistently fail to meet already low expectations, and yet some people want to pretend that they’re the future.

      he can’t even do the bit of “work” of being diplomatic (he doesn’t speak welsh, won’t go to wales, won’t give the welsh team their due…), all while spending his days being incandescent about this or that; meanwhile stepford wife shuts herself in one of their many homes, makes two or three appearances a year to mumble something about children’s development without even bothering to pretend to care about her pet projects, and yet the BM fawns over her like she’s goddamn mother theresa.

      they literally do so little with the much they’ve been given, and it’s infuriating.

    • DK says:

      Seriously! And this “I’ve supported England my whole life” garbage?
      You know what else you’ve been, your entire life? Next in line to be the Prince of Wales.
      It’s not like this role came as a surprise to you. You should have been preparing for it.

      (Also, the argument that the Welsh team wasn’t good enough to get into tournaments when he was a kid, so he doesn’t support them….worst argument ever. Now you’ve shown yourself to just be a go-with-the-trends fair-weather fan. The worst kind of sports fan!)

  5. Brassy Rebel says:

    I hate to be shallow, but it’s so obvious in these pictures: how did such a handsome boy turn into such a homely man? Is it proof that eventually our looks reflect our character?

    • duchess of hazard says:

      @Brassy Rebel – they say that you get the face you were born with at twenty, but the face you deserve at forty. I guess William has gotten the face that he deserves.

    • ArtHistorian says:

      It is the Windsor Curse (genetics) – just look at what it did Prince Edward who was much better looking than William as a youth. Now they look alike to such a degree that they could be mistaken for brothers.

  6. Harla A Brazen Hussy says:

    Another giant word-salad from the PoW.

  7. Lucy says:

    What a bunch of word salad. And his emphasis on he always roots for Wales in rugby? All I’m hearing is, I only root for ppl who win. Bandwagon fan.

    Good on Michael Sheen. I think he’s also said he’s donating his earnings from future projects, he feels like he has enough $$. Can you imagine.

  8. Emily says:

    It’s a bit funny hearing William talk sports. I can’t picture him having a regular conversation about sports in a bar. Everything he does is robotic.

  9. Ameerah M says:

    This is off topic a bit but…why are William’s lips so damn dry and crusty? He’s going around meeting people with his lips looking like that? But some damn lip balm on! Jeez…

  10. Laughysaphy says:

    This is so fu**ing stupid, lol! But it does demonstrate how completely inept William is at everything.

    • zappy says:

      He is so stupid but also I think he just want to show everyone that he can do whatever he want. Thats why he support only england team and stubornly keep that stance. He ignore any critic because he believe he above everyone else

  11. Jane says:

    How difficult would it have been to get Kate to hand out shirts to the Welsh team? Or George to support the English team and William to support the Welsh? How do they continue to be so bad at this?

    • UnstrungPearl says:

      It would have been so easy to do this, the bare minimum. Have Kate support Wales and do a big thing of them competing against each other. It wouldn’t solve the real issue – an English Prince of Wales – but would have avoided some of the backlash. Its really telling that Wales is such an afterthought to him and his team, they never saw this coming?!

  12. Digital Unicorn says:

    I think Sheen is everyone’s favourite hairy Welshman – he called out the King why does Cain think he’s different. The reason the visit to the Welsh parliament was on the down low yesterday was because snowflake didn’t want to get booed by the public. The comparisons between him and his father are NOT flattering – when the Welsh say Chuck was a better PoW than you maybe you should just hand you head in shame.

  13. DARK says:

    So he can only support a team if they are doing well or is it to be seen to support a team that is the issue?
    Also “A royal source says it would be “quite disingenuous for someone who hasn’t been shy about supporting England his entire life to start changing his allegiances now,”
    Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted the title then. Cause clamoring for the Prince of Wales title but not supporting it’s people seems very disingenous to me.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Oh fer crying out loud, it’s football! ‘Changing allegiances’ is neither here nor there! And it’s sports! People change their favorite teams all the time!

  14. Eurydice says:

    I though William was supposed to be getting a better PR team. Anyone with 2 brain cells would know that the POW should also visit the Welsh team.

  15. TIFFANY says:

    I only opened this story because Michael Sheen’s name was on in the title.

    I Honk for Michael Sheen.

  16. Harper says:

    Honestly, it feels like the conflict never dawned on William until the Twitter backlash. His head is in the clouds as he stubbornly digs in for England, just expecting Wales to shut up about it because he was once a little boy and you know, he can’t evolve past those allegiances.

    • Steph says:

      Which makes no sense. I commented below that Khadaver got shredded for doing the exact same thing just a little while back with the women’s teams.

  17. Zappy says:

    Is he a child ?? He is prince of wales, people have expectation to him to act accordingly. Just say you support both teams. So easy. But no, he choose to act like spoiled child.

  18. Jais says:

    So it’s the future king talking about sports. What else has he done lately? Sport sports and more sports. Not a big deal, I guess, but he comes across as such a lightweight and can’t even get this right.

  19. Steph says:

    Didn’t his wife get ripped to shreds a few weeks ago for the same damn thing? These two are so dumb.

  20. MissMarirose says:

    “When I was growing up Wales …”
    Da fuq? He didn’t grow up in Wales

    • Tessa says:

      He didn’t say he was growing up IN Wales. He said “when I was growing up, Wales…”.

      I find it more weird that he keeps repeating that Wales “didn’t get through to the tournaments”. I don’t know what exactly this refers to, but I imagine it could have one of 2 meanings:
      1. Wales team wasn’t good enough to advance back then, which… I’m sure they *love* being reminded of that. /s/
      2. Wales team wasn’t allowed to advance because they weren’t a national team, and players had to join the UK national team or something in order to play, so they’d never play for Wales per se. Again, not sure Wales wants that repeatedly pointed out.

      I sincerely hope there is a 3rd, more benign, meaning to these words that didn’t occur to me as an ignorant foreigner who knows nothing about rugby and not much about soccer in the UK.

    • Nanny to the Rescue says:

      He didn’t say he did, he said “When I was growing up Wales didn’t get through to the tournaments” – as in, in his youth (wherever that was) Wales didn’t qualify.

      William is a schmuck regardless, and is slowly learning the Welsh title doesn’t come so easy – he’ll have to explain himself every time he does anything not pro-Welsh. Charles and the title holders before him were luckier in a way – in his early days the Welsh revival wasn’t in full swing and if the Welsh were unhappy only the Welsh media reported it. But nowadays everything makes international news. Which is good. Start practising diplomacy, Wills!

  21. girl_ninja says:

    I like to believe that Micheal is a Sussex Squad-der and he’s just going after Willy for them. I know it’s for football but it makes me smile to think the other way. And also, Michael is right.

    • Nanny to the Rescue says:

      Sheen is heavily anti-monarchy. I think he’d be more pro-Sussex than pro-Cambridge, but I doubt he’d really support Meghan or Harry while they still maintain their titles.

  22. Miranda says:

    Hell, I don’t even think he needed to say he supports both. He probably could’ve gotten away with saying that he’s always supported England and making a joke about how, given that the UK is so serious about football, switching teams now would be akin to treason or something.

    • Nanny to the Rescue says:

      Yeah, and you could get hanged, drawn and quartered for treason, a punishment the English invented for the last Welshman who held the title of a prince of Wales by birth – so very poignant in this situation.

      That title really needs to be gone now.

  23. Concern Fae says:

    He can cheer for whichever team he chooses when he’s home watching the telly. As a prince of the realm, he needs to publicly show enthusiastic support for all the national teams with no favoritism.

    This isn’t hard. It’s past time to ask what went seriously wrong in the raising of the future king.

    • Fancyhat says:

      Yeah this is just moronic. How hard is it to just publicly show equal support for all teams? He’s the Prince of the UK not just England.

  24. Deneph says:

    So he supports England in soccer because they tended to win more but he supports Welsh Rugby because that’s where they’re stronger? He just wants to root for whichever is more likely to win? Okay.

  25. Becks1 says:

    HAHA!!! Charles knew what he was doing giving him the PoW title so fast, lol.

    Because really, that’s the issue. William supporting England in the World Cup is perfectly fine and to be expected, considering he’s the president of the FA in England.

    But now as Prince of Wales, that’s a little different. It’s a bit more complicated.

    I honestly think it would have been fine if he did more in general, so it wouldn’t seem like one of the first 10 things he did as PoW was to….support England in the World Cup. Or maybe not “fine,” but better.

    Also, how did his people not think of a better answer for him? I think saying “I love Wales, and I’m rooting for the Welsh team, but my first love for football is England bc that’s how I was raised, Wales is certainly a very strong second in my heart” or something would have been a lot better. did he and Kate never go to a football game in wales? i know they go to games in London.

    OMG THEY’RE GOING TO GO TO A WREXHAM GAME AREN’T THEY SO KATE CAN MEET RYAN REYNOLDS. Watch this space.

    anyway I don’t know, this just shows why the Prince of Wales title is so stupid and insulting.

  26. Amy Bee says:

    I love Michael Sheen. As I said yesterday, William’s comments were weak. But I’ll also add insulting to the Welsh, especially to the part where he says that Wales weren’t qualifying for tournaments so it was easy to chose England. The Welsh don’t have that luxury and would never dare to support England in anything.

  27. Jaded says:

    William is a stupid, gormless tool and Michael Sheen is glorious. Keep lobbing insults at the Wails Michael, this PoW title is like the gift that keeps on giving.

  28. Nic919 says:

    He went by William Wales in the military so it’s not like he wasn’t already linking himself to the future prince of wales title he would receive.

    Sheen is cleverly showing the issue with giving the prince of wales title to the English royal family. They aren’t Welsh and don’t care to even pretend they care about Wales in any real way, even at the level of rooting for sports teams.

    Charles has put in some effort by learning the language and he has a place there and makes visits. It isn’t great but once again William demonstrated just how little he prepared for something that he knew was coming to him from the time he was a young child.

    • Becks1 says:

      I just feel like W&K make everything harder than it is. Why haven’t they been taking the kids to Wales for a week or two every summer? Or over one of their many school breaks? Why not attend an Easter service in wales with the children one year? They were able to vacation in Cornwall, why not vacation in Wales? That way when they say something like “Wales is near and dear to our hearts” it might actually mean something?

      I mean Wales is no Mustique, but come ON now. It’s not that hard to at least come up with the idea.

    • aftershocks says:

      @Nic919: “He went by William Wales in the military so it’s not like he wasn’t already linking himself to the future … title…”

      Harry and William both used the Wales surname in school and in the military because their father held the Prince of Wales title.

      If charming, caring, productive Harry was the oldest, perhaps he might be less criticized as the PoW. But then, Harry surely also would be more sensitive to the feelings of the Welsh people and to the inherent responsibilities of the title.

  29. equality says:

    Where’s the good luck wishes to Canada and Australia? He couldn’t just mention all the countries that have KC as monarch? Wish all luck. Say, may the best team win.

    • Nic919 says:

      Canadians don’t consider that family as anything but English. At least there isn’t a stupid Canadian based title awarded to them.

    • Saucy&Sassy says:

      equality, since I live in a state that borders Canada, when the US isn’t playing, I’ll be cheering Canada on. I’ll also be rooting for the Welch team over the English team. I hope Wales stomps the English–wouldn’t it be great if that happened?

      • Lucky Charm says:

        @ Saucy&Sassy, the U.S. plays Wales on Monday morning, so you’d have to pick one over the other to win and move on to possibly play England. 🙂

      • Saucy&Sassy says:

        Lucky Charm, Hmmmmmm, I guess I’ll root for both. I win either way.

  30. Lizzie Bathory says:

    He can’t manage a proper response about supporting football teams. No wonder everyone behind the scenes is panicking about their future king & praying for Harry’s return. They’d better hope the current petty tyrant has a long life.

  31. ML says:

    Watching William having to navigate having become the PoW and constantly setting a foot wrong has been amusing. Seriously, how can he still be so bad at it? He’s also providing the RR with collateral and will have to provide them with gossip or photos of his kids or something to bury reporting of his mistakes.
    One thing he is actually doing right at the moment is avoiding Qatar. Most countries do -not- want royalty or politicians or famous people to attend as it would be sports washing and showing support for the regime instead of those who died.

  32. A says:

    “When I was growing up Wales didn’t get through to the tournaments”

    Dude!!! As a sports fan, the one thing I can say for sure is that people don’t like it when you remind them that their team used to be sh-t!!!!! It’s even worse when you use that as an excuse for why you don’t support them!!!!

    How hard is it to say something like, “This year, I am delighted and excited by the fact that not one, but two teams that I hold dear to my heart have qualified for the World Cup. Wishing the best of luck to both Wales and England. [insert welsh slogan/chant/something here].” If it were me, I’d be going all over the place talking about what an embarrassment of riches this all is.

    But no, Baldy has to make it all ten thousand times more complicated, doesn’t he. And it really does say something about how he views his world. For him, what matters, and what he has been raised to care about, is England. Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland….all of these are afterthoughts for this royal family.

    Good for Michael Sheen for calling William out. What he tweeted was like…the nicest way to say something. The way these people go out of their way to make the mildest sh-t sound like the absolute end of the world is baffling to me.

    • ArtHistorian says:

      He really is very bad at his light-weight job, isn’t he. He should be mortified that he’s always putting his feet wrong but he probably isn’t (and he most likely doesn’t think that he ever makes any mistakes).

  33. Lemons says:

    Harry would never!

  34. TheOriginalMia says:

    Even trying to be “diplomatic”, he slights the Welsh. Good Lord, what a dunce.

  35. Rachel says:

    Also, Wales hasn’t been in the World Cup since 1958. This is HUGE deal for the Welsh people and for all of us ex-pats living overseas. Like…a huge deal. There is so much emotion and spirit for The Dragon and this is so disappointing. Get a fecking clue.

    • Lucky Charm says:

      That’s almost like the Seattle Mariners in MLB. They are the only team to have never played in the World Series. Yet their fans would take out anyone who dared bring that fact up. William would be wise to remember that fans are going to protect their team, and don’t take being dissed lightly.

  36. Visa Diva says:

    This shouldn’t have been this difficult for William. He’s President of the the English FA, so it’s prefectly fine for him to go and present their WC kit and wish them well. Then put out a statement wishing both teams well and acknowledging England for their consistency in participation and the excietment of Wales being in the men’s WC for the first time since 1958. Both accomplishements are worthy of recognition and while it wouldn’t address the deeper and totally valid issue Wales has with him being PoW, it wouldn’t have left the Welsh feeling rightfullt slighted on this particular issue.

  37. Jay says:

    Man, William is sooooo bad at this. Now I hope that staged season 3 has an inept royal trying, but failing, to scupper the show.

    I’m not planning on watching the world cup at all, but now I’m at least pulling for Wales to make it through ahead of England.

  38. BeGoneOrangeCheeto says:

    I’m American by birth and country but also Welsh, Scottish, British, German and a tiny bit of Irish. I have always felt more connection with my Scottish/Welsh ancestry since my name is as Scottish/Welsh as you can possibly get.

    I’m with Michael. Wales for the Welsh! The Prince of Wales is a title that now is associated with oppressive colonizers.

    Diolch, Michael. Cymru am byth.

    • Lucky Charm says:

      My son-in-law is American of Welsh descent. They were actually considering Welsh names for their kids but eventually went with other names. Damn those popular American name lists lol. Rhiannon is such a beautiful name, too bad that they didn’t stick with that for my granddaughter. (But full disclosure, I’m of partial Irish heritage and my daughter has an Irish Gaelic name, so part of me hoped they’d go with an Irish name 🙂)

  39. lissabel says:

    Go Wales. Have you guys watch the Wrexham documentary . It make me cry at least once and it was in good order. In this crazy matter, His smile doesn’t reach his eyes does it. Imagine if Wales beat England last year instead of Italy (whom anyone in his circle blames he black players for missing penalty kicks.) Did it ever dawn on any of these twatwaffles that now that he’s the “new exciting ” Prince of Wales? Of course not. He could give a rat’s ass. This shows in a microcosm of a social/political sense that is only payment of funds that encourages any
    Go Wales..!!

  40. MangoAngelesque says:

    Michael Sheen is an absolute treasure. William is a selfish charisma-vacuum. This is not a battle he can win.

    And Michael’s rousing call-to-arms for the Welsh team is utterly magnificent to watch. He just reverberates with passion.

  41. sammi says:

    Sensitivity or embarassment is not in his repertoire! The history of english behaviour in Wales is appalling with some children made to where slates around their necks if they dared to speak welsh in school. Abolish the language to make the population identify with english and not welsh. Same in Ireland and Scotland.
    “Still available online, the clip shows a teacher berating a girl, saying: “You must not waste time speaking Welsh. Nerys! I heard you in the yard just now speaking Welsh. Come out here.”

    Putting a wooden board tied with string around the girl’s neck, the teacher then says: “You will wear the Welsh Not, and if you hear any other child speaking Welsh in the course of the day, tell me, and we will pass it on to that child.”

    The child who wore the board round his or her neck at the end of the school day was beaten.”

    • aftershocks says:

      ^^ That’s horrific! The history of this abusive practice needs to be more publicized, and apologized for by the British government!