In the wake of allegations of a player-coach relationship at Leicester’s Women’s Super League side, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes has claimed player-to-player relationships on teams are also “inappropriate” because they present extra challenges to manage.
Hayes is finishing out the season as manager of Sam Kerr’s Chelsea in the WSL before taking up the top job with the US Women’s national team, starting with a pair of friendly matches against South Korea in June.
The Englishwoman was asked about player safeguards after reports in the British media that Leicester women’s manager Willie Kirk is being investigated by the club over an allegation of a player-coach relationship.
“We have to have safeguarding, make sure that’s it’s accessible for each and every club to protect players,” she said.
“Player-coach relationships they’re 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 ‘look, 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.”
The comments from the six-time WSL-winning coach raised some eyebrows as there are a number of relationships between players around the league, including at her own club.
England and Chelsea star Jess Carter is in a relationship with Blues goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger, with Carter liking a number of posts on X criticising Hayes’s comments.
Many of those posts pointed out the difference in the power imbalance present in a player-coach relationship vs a relationship between two players.
Hayes said player-to-player relationships can be hard to navigate for a coach.
“One player’s in the team, one’s not in the team. One might be in the last year of their contract, one might not be,” she said in listing some of the situations that can arise.
“We all know, those of us that have been in the women’s game for a long period of time, those things have been happening in dressing rooms. Longer term, it would be ideal … where you don’t have to deal with that.”
She added: “We’re dealing with human beings. We do talk about it internally.”
Hayes said it is important to consider the historical context.
“Women’s football as we know has been a very amateur game for a long period of time, so — and I say this around player-to-player relationships as well — there’s challenges that we’re moving to a point where we should be moving past those places,” she said.
Pernille Harder and Magdalena Eriksson have been in a relationship for the past decade and played together at Chelsea for three seasons.
They switched to Bayern Munich last summer.
Matildas defender Ellie Carpenter plays alongside partner Danielle van de Donk at European champions Lyon in France.
AP/ABC