Ellie Levenson: It's not 'weak' to listen to your other half

I've never met the footballer Roy Keane, the former Manchester United and Ireland captain and now manager of Sunderland, and I'm not sure that I would want to. He doesn't have a reputation for being the most understanding of men. Keane doesn't go in for the "when seagulls follow a trawler" school of philosophy of Cantona, or the touchy feely "being a dad is more important than football" approach of Beckham.

Keane prefers to make the following kind of comment: "I'd waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there (I think)... And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries," and "Even in the dressing room afterwards, I had no remorse. My attitude was, fuck him. What goes around comes around. He got his just rewards... My attitude is an eye for an eye." I mean, even Vinnie Jones, the other bad boy of football, says nice things about his wife and kids in interviews.

So I'm not terribly surprised that Keane has been making comments about how ridiculous it is for footballers to take into account the wishes of their partner when choosing which club to join. I had a hunch that he wasn't going to be a feminist. "If someone doesn't want to come to Sunderland, then all well and good. But if they don't want to come to Sunderland because their wife wants to go shopping in London, then it is a sad state of affairs... women running the show concerns me and worries me," he fumed, having tried to sign up some players who, he says, won't come to Sunderland on account of the fact that their wives want to go shopping in London.

Of course it's not just the shopping bit that bothers Keane, it's the idea that women might have a say at all in where they live their lives. "I find it a bit of a surprise that geography seems to play such a big part, or that players let their wives decide. I think it is weak. Weak." In his comments Keane fails to accept that women, even those going out with footballers, may have jobs and interests of their own as well as friends and families they may not want to leave.

Take Coleen McLoughlin, for example, the girlfriend of Wayne Rooney and widely considered queen of the wags. She earns a pretty penny in her own right, with advertising and publishing contracts making her a millionaire several times over. In fact Rooney, even leaving his injured left foot aside, would be wise to follow her career around the world rather than the other way, given that, unlike him, she won't have to retire in a few years' time and could continue working even if she had to use crutches.

Before the hate mail arrives from people in Sunderland, I'd like to say this isn't me doing what Boris Johnson did to Liverpool. I've nothing against Sunderland. In fact, when I was there I had a nice stroll along the beach and was very impressed by the gleaming university, the National Glass Centre and the clean and cheap metro that took me straight past the exciting Stadium of Light and straight into the centre of Newcastle. But if a woman wanted to take a job in Sunderland and tried to convince her husband or boyfriend to leave his life in London with all the opportunities the capital has to offer, would Roy Keane think that unreasonable? I bet he would.

Women have followed men around for their career long enough without complaint. What is more, when women do follow their men they still get abuse. Take Victoria Beckham. She's actually the epitome of what an old fashioned man wants in a woman - she cut back her working hours when she got married, gave birth to three sons, always looks glamorous, talks about how good her husband is in bed, follows him around the world and goes to watch him play football. Does she get praised for this? No. Women don't like her for being sexy and men don't like her for, well, being sexy.

She even followed her man to Spain despite not speaking the language, not finding a house she liked, not finding schools she wanted for her children and amid allegations of David's infidelity. Now the Beckhams have moved to America and, whatever career opportunities this might give Victoria, the truth is it is still ultimately for David's career and his £128 million job at LA Galaxy.

Perhaps the real reason that Keane is finding it hard to entice players to Sunderland, aside, of course, from the fact that they don't want to work for someone who shouts at them for being weak when they take other people's feelings into account, is that they don't want to go to Sunderland for their own reasons.

When I was younger, if a friend asked me to do something I didn't want to do I would often say, with her blessing, that my mum wouldn't let me, as I was too cowardly to actually admit that I didn't want to do it. My parents, who were pretty liberal, actually let me do most things, but it was a handy arrangement to have.

Maybe it's not the shopping habits of the wags that is stopping footballers move to Sunderland, but their own desire to hit the shops. For whether it's sarongs, diamond earrings (in both ears) or interesting hairstyles, it is the footballers rather than the wags who lead the way in setting the fashion agenda.

In fact, I have little doubt that Keane has fallen for the same kind of line I used to use when I lived with my parents - my wife won't let me. After all, there's only one thing more fashion-conscious than a footballer's wife, and that's the footballer himself.