How do you get from Pelé to Rachael Blackmore to Conor McGregor? Let’s see.

Controversial Sunday Times columnist Camilla Long had no bother making a sweeping connection recently between the late, great Brazilian and Andrew Tate, the ex-kickboxer cum male lifestyle “influencer” who’s better known as a poster boy for toxic masculinity.

In a (not so happy) New Year’s Day piece shortly after Pelé’s passing, Long complained that the recent death of English fashion designer, Dame Vivienne Westwood, didn’t get near the same coverage — as if the two were in some way comparable. True to form, she attributed this discrepancy to sheer sexism.

From what I could see, and to be honest I didn’t go looking too deeply, Westwood’s death prompted pages of tributes in print and online. All most likely richly deserved. But Camilla, whose column seems to be a weekly dissection of the species known as male chauvinist pig, had a premise for a polemic and was sticking to it.

Now, I’m not an aficionado, so I don’t know if Vivienne was, as Eamon Dunphy might say, a good designer or a great designer. But I do know that Edson Arantes do Nascimento, whose full name most football nuts could narrate from a young age, is, in all probability, the greatest player ever to lace up a pair of boots, or to kick a ball barefoot for that matter. If Messi says Maradona is the GOAT, and Maradona said Pelé is the GOAT, then that’s the conundrum solved.

Long conflated the Amazonian rain forest of Pelé pieces as further evidence, to her mind, of a misogynistic media; the sort that gives solace to the likes of Tate (currently in jail facing serious charges of a sexual nature), gaining him a massive social media following among impressionable young men.

Notwithstanding the fact that most of us haven’t a clue who he is, and couldn’t care less, to suggest his views are in harmony with the silent male majority, particularly in the media, is a stretch too far.

The reality is that most men are decent, if flawed. Take the recent one-way spat between Paul McGrath and Conor McGregor. ‘The Notorious’ is Ireland’s version of Tate with bells on. Having traded in what got him to the top for a boorish bruiser act that’s long beyond lame, his attempts to taunt and ridicule McGrath on Twitter (“Paul, you Englishman”) went down like one of his poxy whiskeys, as anyone with half a brain cell could have advised.

Prone to tapping out and punching defenceless citizens sat on barstools, this was one fight McGregor should never have taken on. Though he doesn’t appear to be “thinking clearly” for some time now. As you’d expect, McGrath’s singular reply — in defence of comedian PJ Gallagher, whose mental health McGregor had mocked — was dignity personified.

Attempting to win a popularity contest with Ireland’s most beloved sportsperson (and possibly person full stop) was a dumb move even by McGregor’s standards. And the majority who called him out for being a tool were men. Mentioning our much admired (and reviled), if you were asked to pick the two most popular and respected sportspeople in Ireland right now, among males and females alike, who might you choose? Katie Taylor and Rachael Blackmore wouldn’t be far off.

For all Taylor has achieved in a brutal business, Blackmore edges it for me, simply because she is a champion in another ultra-tough sport that no longer has any demarcation lines, largely thanks to her. With a little help from Henry de Bromhead and his sensational Knockeen yard, over the last two years she has smashed down whatever barriers of perception and prejudice remained in National Hunt racing. There are no grey areas or gender-balancing to negotiate in weighing up her success and impact.

Yet, new findings from ONSIDE Irish Sponsorship Industry research, which show that 68% of professionals selected a female as their most marketable personality for 2023, don’t even mention the Tipperary woman. Two Katies, Taylor and Irish soccer skipper McCabe, along with Olympic boxing gold medallist Kellie Harrington, lead the way.

So, the days of men dominating sports endorsements are gone. Irish people appreciate greatness, regardless of sex, race, or social status. Class is the X-Factor. The Tates and McGregors of this world don’t know the meaning of the word. Pelé had it, and dare I say Vivienne did too.