As the Mary Earps ‘All In’ book tour prepares to roll on, you can imagine the sort of promotion the goalkeeper’s PR team may have had in mind ahead of her Old Trafford reunion on Wednesday night, before their plans went awry.
“Book your place now for an evening with Lionesses hero Mary Earps – note, copies will not be signed.”
But there is a match to play and now Earps’s return to her former team Manchester United with Paris Saint-Germain comes at an awkward, uncomfortable time for almost everyone involved. Just as the crowds were starting to head home from the circus, the Women’s Champions League has thrown up a fixture to keep this unfortunate cycle going.
In case you were not aware, and have somehow managed to avoid the many cross-platform interviews with Earps over the past two weeks, the release of the former England goalkeeper’s book All In: Football, Life and Learning to be Unapologetically Me has dominated the headlines, with the reaction, completely inevitably, focusing on the juiciest passages regarding Earps’s surprise retirement from England duty a few weeks Euro 2025 and her “difficult” relationship with former team-mate Hannah Hampton, who before the tournament.
This has seemingly come as a surprise to Earps and, more bizarrely, her PR team, who amid the fallout of her comments on Hampton continued to push her towards podcast studios and national broadcasters. Earps, 32, has said that did not intend to “tear anyone down”, after alleging that during Euro 2022 and claiming to have told Sarina Wiegman that “bad behaviour is being rewarded” when Hampton was then recalled to the England squad.
Amid a scathing rebuke from , as well as a few carefully-worded criticisms from former England players for breaking the unwritten rule of breaching the sacred dressing room bubble, Earps might have expected the same Lionesses fans who were so adoring of her following her performances at Euro 2022 and the 2023 World Cup to have been more sympathetic. Instead, there has been more support for Hampton, who and overcame her own personal struggles while dealing with a mountain of scrutiny created by Earps’s retirement.
Like her decision to quit the Lionesses before their Euro 2025 triumph, it’s not the first time Earps’ judgement has come into question. In her book, Earps refers to Hampton as her “competitor”, and speaks as if her position as England No 1 was unfairly usurped. Earps says Wiegman explained to her that she preferred Hampton’s distribution and abilities as a sweeper. Hampton’s performances over the summer vindicated that, and if there were valid reasons for Wiegman to drop Hampton following Euro 2022, when the goalkeeper was 21, that should not have stopped Wiegman from recalling her once she believed she had matured and grown away from that environment.
Hampton has yet to speak out on Earps’s comments, while Wiegman will be asked to do so when she announces her latest squad next week. It has perhaps fed into the general support of Hampton and Wiegman that they have so far been unable to put their side of the story across, if they would even want to.
And yet the criticism of Earps has mostly unfolded on the deeply divided battleground of social media timelines, where accounts hungry for attention fight for dominance. It can be a difficult place to be portrayed as the villain and it is not surprising that Earps has admitted it has . That, of course, is also down to the decision to release a tell-all book while she and Hampton are still playing, amplifying the noise. “The pile-on is a worry,” Ian Wright said on the Stick to Football podcast. With its feeding of algorithms, and its insatiable desire for more content, more reaction, the whole saga has been incredibly online.
That is until Earps steps out onto the Old Trafford pitch and faces her former team United who, with all due respect to Le Havre and Fleury, PSG’s opponents over the past two weekends, carry the weight to take this all to another level. While the majority of PSG’s domestic games in France unfold away from the spotlight, it is perhaps not an exaggeration to suggest that Wednesday is the biggest game for Earps, on a personal level, since the 2024 FA Cup final, or even the 2023 World Cup final with England more than two years ago.
She may find that the reception towards her now is different, too; perhaps not to quite the levels , but this is an uneasy reunion for reasons beyond Hampton. “I’m probably expecting a little booing,” she told the BBC. “I hope it’s a little bit, but it might be a lot.” Earps, after all, left United at the end of her contract in 2024, a decision she also goes into in her book.
Her fan-favourite status during her time with England and following the World Cup was even more pronounced at United but her final season at the club was dominated by reports of contract negotiations and interest from Arsenal. Earps said United eventually offered her a better deal but she decided to move on because she felt wanted by PSG and had a better chance of winning the Women’s Champions League with them.
There is also some suggestion that Earps felt there were broken promises at United and a lack of support for the women’s team; the red carpet may not be rolled out for her.
But in her place, United’s new No 1 Phallon Tullis-Joyce has been a revelation and shared the WSL’s Golden Glove award with Hampton last season. PSG, meanwhile, failed to reach the Champions League and their return comes alongside United’s first season in the competition.
PSG, though, hardly look like contenders, losing to Real Madrid and Wolfsburg, to go along with a 6-1 defeat to Lyon, their rivals for the French title. For Earps, it is a move that has backfired on a professional level, making it far easier for Wiegman to side with Hampton as she performed so well for Chelsea, while the older goalkeeper slipped into obscurity across the Channel.
Now Earps is back in full view. She remains a Lionesses legend, a Manchester United great, and has to hope those who once cheered for her are more forgiving IRL.