Emma Hayes skewers Joey Barton comments in powerful four-minute riposte over criticism of women football pundits

The Chelsea boss believes there is systemic misogyny in football (Pictures: Getty)

Chelsea boss Emma Hayes has expertly and passionately dissected Joey Barton’s outdated and controversial comments on women football pundits, speaking for over four minutes about the male privilege that is embedded in the sport.

Barton provoked ire this week when he made a series of tweets saying ‘women should not be talking with any kind of authority in the men’s game’ before doubling down on his comments in an interview on Piers Morgan’s Uncensored show.

The former Manchester City and Newcastle midfielder – who was sacked as Bristol Rovers boss in October after a dire spell in charge – was also adamant that the men’s and women’s competitions were ‘completely different games’.

But Hayes – who has worked as a pundit and co-commentator for ITV – has hit back at the idea that anyone who comments on football needs to have played at the highest level in order to do so and rubbished the notion that women are being handed roles they do not merit out of ‘tokenism’.

Asked about Barton’s comments, Hayes replied: ‘Look, I think the broader issues that need to be addressed, I’m not going to pollute or dilute that conversation by making it about personality of individuals. The realities are that male privilege has been something that’s always been at the centre of football in this country.

‘Women were banned playing football up until the 1970s. I don’t expect any individual personality to understand their privilege, nonetheless you only have to see scores of women across the internet or in the business, whether you’re a presenter, a coach or a player to realise that we’re routinely used to dealing with systemic misogyny, bullying, and behaviour that has been pretty normal for a large part of the football public.

‘The realities of it is that I find the debate interesting and we should have that debate without being personal about it and I’m not referring to any individuals.

‘But I feel that sport is the last place in society where that male privilege exists and so naturally if I go all Darwinism on us and speak evolution theory, the realities of it are that, when there is an existential threat, you either evolve or you die. It’s one or the other.

‘I think when it comes to the sport of football in this case, we have to remember that society isn’t always as well represented across the media or across the game in coaching or playing.

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‘If you haven’t experienced systemic misogyny like lots of us have, you can’t for one moment understand how detrimental some of these conversations are, knowing that anything anyone says just enables an absolute pile on, particularly on social media which, let me be clear, doesn’t take a lot for people to pile on women. It’s pretty normal for a lot of people that support football.

‘So it’s sad, a little bit, not that we are having this conversation, we should have the conversation about the broader issue of it.

‘But I want to accentuate the positive, I want to accentuate the positive contributions that many of us, myself included, have made to the game of football.

Hayes will take over the US women’s team at the end of the season (Picture: Getty)

‘Unlike other professions, and I have to say this because I’m always fascinated with it, rarely do we go into a hospital and if we have a female physician who is carrying out a surgical procedure on someone’s kidney, often we won’t turn around and say to that surgeon, “I hope she was a good patient once cause being a good patient means that you’re going to be a good doctor.” Well we know that’s not true.

‘Talent and experience might help and a good skill set. It’s the same about being a great banker. Does that mean you had to be a frugal spender to be a good banker?

‘Much in the same way, do you have to be a well-travelled passenger to be a good pilot? I think we become so unaware of our confirmation biases, but two, when there’s an existential threat, the things we do to make ourselves relevant create a lot of noise around a very, very, very interesting topic but perhaps we could do it better in another way.’

MORE : Bloke with 12-minute England career tells Alex Scott to stick to women’s football

MORE : Joey Barton slammed for calling his brother’s racially-motivated murder of teen ‘a scrap’

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