Emma Hayes ticks off every major step made by women in football with great interest.
The Chelsea manager speaks with pride about US legend Mia Hamm’s appointment on to the board at Italian giants AS Roma, and has enormous respect for the work Hope Powell and Kelly Simmons have done in promoting the game in this country.
She hoped to be the first female manager to win the WSL, but was denied in dramatic fashion by Liverpool on a heart-stopping final day earlier this month.
So for now Hayes is the only female boss across the 18 FA Women’s Super League clubs – and she knows that soon that will have to change.
Emma Hayes consoles Eni Aluko after Chelsea's title heartbreak
She said: “You have to ask clubs and chairman why there aren’t more females managing teams but you also have to bear in mind that we’ve not long been professional and that with players coming through we will see more coming into coaching.
“Up until now there haven’t really been too many opportunities in coaching on a full-time level.”
Hayes sandwiched working under Vic Akers at Arsenal Ladies with two successful spells in the US.
“The game in America is on an equal footing. There’s equal funding, equal access. If women are good enough they will get an opportunity. It’s a great place to develop as a women’s coach.
“There are plenty of great English coaches working in America. We can't complain about them leaving if there aren't jobs here”
Emma Hayes
Chelsea manager
“There are plenty of great English female coaches working in America. I’ve met them. We can’t complain about them leaving when there aren’t any jobs for them.
“Ultimately it is up to clubs and The FA to continue their investment so that we have a place to go.”
Speaking at Kick It Out's Raise Your Game Women's conference at West Ham United, Hayes prefers to talk about women in football facing challenges rather than discrimination.
Challenges, she says, can be overcome: “We don’t send our kids to primary school and expect all the teachers to be men or all of them to be women. And if you go to a hospital you don’t place much emphasis on whether it’s a man or a woman.
“We are in a profession where it has been in the dark ages. It is changing but it is changing slower than any other professions. But as boards diversify, then coaching appointments will diversify.
“You only have to look at Mia Hamm being voted on to the board at Roma. The most famous female player ever is a board member at a big Italian men’s club.
“People talk about how difficult it is to overcome challenges in Italy. I think we’ll see more and more of these appointments.”
Hayes was joined at Upton Park this week by Simmons, The FA’s Director of the National Game and Women’s Football, who delivered the day’s keynote speech, while fellow FA employees Amreeta Bola and Funke Awoderu served as mentors to attendees.
US football legend Mia Hamm
Simmons, in particular, drew praise from Hayes. She said: “Kelly and Hope did a wonderful job to ensure that there were females on the coaching pathway – but many of those are still working at The FA. I’d like to see more come into the club game because they have a lot to offer.”
Hayes loves the daily contact she has with her players at Chelsea and next season will go full-time after handing over the running of her family foreign exchange business to her two sisters.
And she is not the only woman in a position of power at Stamford Bridge, with Marina Granovskaia among owner Roman Abramovich’s most trusted executives.
Hayes said: “I’m at a club like Chelsea who are not afraid to invest in women. I’ve been here for two years and I very much hope I am there for a long time.
“There’s nothing better than putting a team together from scratch based on a set of principles and being given the support and the time to develop that. “
Chelsea and England defender Laura Bassett would make a fine coach, says Emma Hayes
Hayes says it is not just the trust of men in football that she has had to win over.
“Being led by a female is a first-time experience for some female players and it can take time for them to buy into what you’re doing. But if they trust you then you can get them to do anything.
“That’s why it’s important to have women coaching at all age groups – so it’s not a first-time experience when the players get to elite level.”
But happily Hayes sees players at Chelsea who have dreams of one day passing on their experience on the training field.
She said: “Laura Bassett is someone who will look to progress in her coaching career. She thinks like a coach and is already coaching at a grassroots level. Gilly Flaherty I can see going into coaching.
“Now it’s on owners to show a bit more courage and for them to understand that in order for women to get better at coaching you have to put them in positions.”
