Emma Hayes admits player relationships in the same women’s team presents ‘challenges’ (Chelsea)
Chelsea manager Emma Hayes believes player relationships in same women’s team are ‘inappropriate’.
Hayes has joined several high-profile figures in women’s football this week in condemning player-coach relationships after Leicester City manager Willie Kirk was suspended by the club over his alleged relationship with a player in his squad.
Last month, Sheffield United sacked Jonathan Morgan, the manager of their women’s side, after it emerged he had a relationship with a player when he was at a previous club.
Hayes, meanwhile, also feels player relationships within the same team in women’s football ‘presents challenges’ and believes the professional game should ‘move past those places’.
When asked about player-coach relationships at her press conference on Thursday, Hayes said: ‘I think, I know this is a conversation I might have had in the past, I think one of the important things to talk about is the women’s game shifting from an amateur game into a professional game.
‘And with that, I think the reality is that in almost all areas of our game we have to make sure that there is a minimum standard in place.
‘I think we have to have safeguarding, make sure that it’s accessible for each and every club to protect players.
Leicester City Women manager Willie Kirk with Chelsea Women Manager Emma Hayes before the Leicester City v Chelsea FC – Barclays Women’s Super League match at King Power Stadium on March 3, 2024 in Leicester, United Kingdom. (Photo by Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)
‘I think the challenges of coming from an amateur game to a pro game means that women’s sport has largely been social.
‘I think player-coach relationships are inappropriate, player-to-player relationships are inappropriate.
‘But we have to look at it in the context of where the game has come from and say we’re in a professional era now where the expectations in place for players and coaches is such that all of our focus and attention has got to be on having the top standards.
‘And that’s why I’ve always been an advocate of making sure clubs have minimum standards, whether it’s code of conduct, player safeguarding, whether it’s player welfare.
‘And I don’t think it’s just in and around player-coach relationships, I refer to that around all things with where our pro game is going. I do still think we’ve got a lot of work to do with that. I hope, as I mentioned last week, particularly with the [Karen] Carney review, that we apportion even more minimum standards to put in place in clubs, because I still feel if you were to go across, not just WSL1 but WSL2, there’s such an extreme from a club like Chelsea with 25 people on staff, or Arsenal, or you go all the way down to the bottom of WSL2, I think we need to make sure we put in robust staffing teams in and around the players to make sure we give them safe, secure, safeguarding environments, I think that’s absolutely essential.
‘I can’t tell you what’s the ins and outs of my own contract but we talk about it as players and staff, the importance of creating a safe environment for our players is absolutely essential. I think, as I said before it’s [player-coach relationships] inappropriate.
Magdalena Eriksson and Pernille Harder were in a relationship during Emma Hayes’ reign at Chelsea (Getty)
‘I always bring up the historical context of where the women’s game has come from because I think it is important to talk from that perspective. Women’s football, as we know, has been a very amateur game for a long period of time, and I say this around player-to-player relationships as well, there’s challenges that I think that we’re moving to a point where we should moving past those places.
‘If I think about things like racism, or homophobia, or banter, or things like that have become situations where everybody has had to almost be educating up, whether that’s by HR teams, and I know we do a lot of that at Chelsea, I think it’s important for people to be educated around why things are inappropriate and why we have to create safe spaces for our players. I think there’s a bigger conversation to be had about it, but I don’t think we can have the conversation without the historical context and what do we want to continually create for safe spaces in our football environments.
‘If I think about the 12 years I’ve sat down with all of you guys [journalists] at different points we’re all talking about the next steps to help professionalise our game. I think reporting mechanisms on a number of fronts should already be in place anyway, which they probably are in top clubs, like you’ll have situations where if there’s an HR issue with whatever issue it might be, racism, homophobia, challenges of dealing with different situations, I think beyond what is happening in each and every club, maybe that is something that needs to be looked at.
‘But I always think you have to get it right in your own home first, I think HR teams in each individual club have a role to play in educating with those challenges and I don’t think those challenges are limited to player to coach, I think it’s player to player, all the other subjects that I’ve spoken about millions of times and probably just the next step with where the game needs to go.’
When asked why she specifically feels player-to-player relationships are inappropriate, Hayes replied: ‘I think it’s about just challenges it poses.
‘One player is in the team, one’s not in the team. One might be in the last year of their contract, one might not be. One might be competing in a position with someone else, you don’t need me to spell that out, it presents challenges.
‘I think we all know those of us who have been in the women’s game for a long period of time, those things have been happening in dressing rooms. I think longer term it would be ideal, in an ideal world, where you don’t have to deal with that.
‘It’s quite challenging for coaching teams to have to deal with it. You talk about it from a hierarchal perspective, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t present challenges, it does, I think you have to work an awful lot on how to manage those challenges in the locker room because they are far from ideal.
‘Listen, we’re dealing with human beings, and every office place has different challenges to deal with, that’s one of the challenges I have to deal with in my job, it’s the same things you have to deal with at work, I guess, it’s just I have to manage it and like I said it presents challenges.
‘We do talk about it internally, I think long term, in an ideal world, it’s something we didn’t have to.’
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