Prince William has not been seen publicly or heard from whatsoever since March 19th. That was his trip to Sheffield, where he met with local leaders, talked about homelessness and apparently made eyes at Becky English. English covered that March 19th event and she squeezed several stories out of it, including another hysterically unhinged piece about how Huevo is “bereaved” about Prince Harry’s “devastating defection.” My point is that was what William was up to during the week his wife sat alone on a bench and told the world that she has cancer. William hasn’t been seen since. Then on Wednesday, we got a missive from William on the Twitter machine. William is president of the Football Association, and he paid tribute to Rachel Daly, who plays for the Lionesses. Daly just announced her retirement from international competition (meaning, she won’t play for the Lionesses anymore).

Prince William took a tentative step on his return to public life on Wednesday with a social media post praising one of England’s leading soccer players who had announced her retirement from the sport at an international level.

William has not been seen or heard from since his wife, Kate, 42, shocked the world last month by announcing she had cancer. He is understood to have been at their country house, Anmer Hall, on the Sandringham Estate, with his family for the past three weeks, which have also been school holidays in the U.K.

In a post on Instagram and X, William paid tribute to England player Rachel Daly, 32, who announced Wednesday she was retiring from the international game. She will continue to play for the women’s team at Aston Villa, the Birmingham club which William supports.

Daly bowed out on a high, with England scoring a 2-0 victory over Ireland Tuesday night. She said: “I would love nothing more than to play for England forever, but the time has come for me to hang my boots up on the international stage.”

William’s post is likely to be interpreted as a welcome sign that he intends to return to more public facing duties next week, once his kids return to school.

[From The Daily Beast]

The countdown has begun, hasn’t it? Since Easter, every palace comms office has gone silent as the grave as all of the senior royals are recovering from cancer or on holiday. But there will be an expectation that William returns to some kind of public schedule next week, surely. Or will the school run remain too time-consuming? I can’t wait to hear some curt explanation that when William said he would return to work after the Easter holiday, he meant “June.”

Here’s the social media post – it drives me crazy that the FA president wasn’t traveling around the world to celebrate the Lionesses in recent years, when they were arguably the best team in the world. They reached their first-ever Women’s World Cup final, they won the 2022 Euros, and at one point they were on a 30-match unbeaten streak. The FA president maybe went to two of their games during that time?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.