The assessment - "just a personal preference," Cundy said on the ITV show, disclaiming bias - is a familiar one for women who venture to speak in male-dominated spheres. A similar judgment dogged Hillary Clinton in her pursuit of the Oval Office. It weighs, too, on women in media and entertainment.
Cundy's objection to the female commentator drew the rebuke of Piers Morgan, co-host of Good Morning Britain, and became one more piece of evidence that the World Cup is proving to be a fraught arena for gender relations and norms of appropriate conduct, as female sports journalists fend off unwanted kissing and groping - sometimes on air.
In both cases, full-throated condemnations have echoed more loudly than the original affront.
"Your annoyance appears to be because they have too pitchy voices even though yours is just as pitchy, which seems to make you a sexist pig," Morgan told Cundy, referring to a side-by-side comparison revealing that his voice was in the same pitch range as Sparks'.
Morgan warned the pundit and former competitor: "This is not a fight to pick. This is not a hill to die on."
Cundy later came to the same conclusion, issuing a three-part Twitter apology on Monday night.
"There are times when you have to hold your hands up and admit you are wrong and have been an idiot - and this is definitely one of those times," he wrote, adding that there was "absolutely no place for these demeaning attitudes towards female commentators."
The flap brought renewed attention to Sparks' performance, which shattered a glass ceiling long keeping women from the prominent role of commentator. Umbrage at Cundy's comments reflected disbelief that a view apparently tinged by gender bias could be trumpeted so plainly amid the current reckoning with discrimination and abuse endured by women.
"God forbid a woman could talk for 90 minutes," said Susannah Reid, the Good Morning Britain's co-host. "I mean, something I could only dream of, frankly."
Lynsey Hooper, a sports reporter, said Sparks' performance was personal for female sports fans - and cause for celebration. "They have someone to relate to," she said on the show.
"There are so many people that loved what Vicki did," she said. "And there were people that didn't like it. And that's just the way of life. But you have a choice. We haven't had a choice before."
As Sparks broke one gender boundary at the World Cup, other women encountered persistent barriers to the simple execution of their jobs.
Over the weekend, a Brazilian journalist, Julia Guimaraes, was presenting outside of the Senegal-Japan game in Yekaterinburg, a Russian city east of the Ural Mountains, when a man bounded up to her and attempted to kiss her. She successfully dodged him, and then proceeded to lecture him about respecting women.
"Don't do this," she said. "Never do this again, OK? Don't do this. I don't allow you to do that."
The man can be heard apologising off-screen.
Guimaraes, a reporter for Brazil's TV Globo/SporTV, said on Twitter that this was not the first time she had been harassed during the World Cup in Russia. "Fortunately, I have never experienced this in Brazil!" she wrote.
Other instances of harassment have similarly been captured on video. Julieth Gonzalez Theran, a Colombian journalist, was in the middle of a live report for Deutsche Welle's Spanish channel on opening day of the World Cup when a man approached her, grabbing her breast and kissing her on the cheek.
She continued her broadcast but later said, "We do not deserve this treatment." DW posted a video of the incident online, adding, "Sexual harassment is not OK. It needs to stop. In football, and elsewhere."
Some took a different view of the man's behavior, with one Twitter user responding that "people are simply overfilled with joy."
"Sorry, but no," DW responded. "kissing someone against their will is sexual harassment. Groping a woman's breast while she's busy doing her job is sexual harassment."
The international broadcaster said the man in question had come forward and apologised to Gonzalez Theran via Skype.
Meanwhile, Getty Images is one of the world's most reputable photo agencies posted and then deleted a gallery of "the World Cup's sexiest fans".
Throughout the World Cup in Russia, its elite photographers have been documenting the key players and moments of every game, capturing the emotional reactions in the stands.
But one photo gallery posted by Getty Images on Monday focused less on the game and more on the physical appearance of only some of its fans - women.
The gallery, titled "World Cup 2018: The Sexiest Fans," featured pictures of women in the stands, some wearing revealing clothing. It appeared on the blog Foto, which is owned by Getty Images.
"The hottest fans at the #WorldCup," Getty Images wrote in a tweet sharing the gallery, which it later deleted. It featured the sub-headline "Talk about a knock-out round," according to an image on PetaPixel.
"Soccer is known as the beautiful game, and that includes its fans," read the caption of the piece on Twitter. "Check out photos of some of the sexiest of them here."
It was the type of photo gallery that would, perhaps, be expected in a tabloid, but not on the website of a highly regarded, prizewinning photo agency.
After facing intense backlash on social media, Getty Images' FOTO blog deleted the gallery and published an editor's note in its place.
"Earlier, we published a piece, 'World Cup 2018: The Sexiest Fans,' that did not meet our editorial standards," the editor's note said. "We regret the error and have removed the piece. There are many interesting stories to tell about the World Cup and we acknowledge this was not one of them."
The photo gallery spurred criticism across Twitter and Facebook, with many calling it a sexist move that objectified women.
"Hi Getty, just in case you hadn't noticed it's 2018, not 1975," wrote one critic in response to a Getty Images post on Facebook. "Enough with the dated sexist claptrap."
"Where are the sexy men fans, Getty?" wrote another.
"In the time of #metoo, this is utterly tone-deaf."
This Fan Girl, a project dedicated to documenting female soccer fans, tweeted that the move was "so disappointing."
"You have a responsibility to do better than this," the group tweeted, adding, "There really is no yawn that could be loud enough."
A few observers also noted that Getty Images misspelled "Colombia" as "Columbia" in its photo gallery.
But not everyone was complaining about the gallery. "What's wrong with posting pictures of pretty women?" one man posted on Getty's Facebook page. "Once again the PC brigade drain the fun out of life."
A representative for Getty Images confirmed to the Guardian that the agency had not received permission from the pictured women to be featured specifically in a gallery of "The Sexiest Fans." The representative also said the agency would conduct an internal investigation.
"Getty Images holds a deep belief in the power of visuals to incite change and shift attitudes and we have done, and will continue to do, much work to promote and create a more evolved and positive depiction of women," the agency's statement said.
