A CAN OF WORMS
No more hiding in the shadows for the women’s game as furtive relationships between team-mates and abuses of power by coaches force clubs to read riot act
It was only six years ago when the women’s game became professional and there were no strict rules in place regarding relationships. For team-mates, coaches, managers, staff.
An eyebrow may have been raised, but with such little scrutiny on the sport, there was no outrage. Do as you please. Nothing to see here.
Yesterday Manchester United called a meeting of their players and staff to remind them of their ‘relationship policy’. Separately, an email was sent to both players and agents with a written communication too. It has been a wake-up call this week for the women’s game. there is scrutiny now.
Polly Bancroft, responsible for strategic direction for the women’s team at United, was being proactive following a week when dressing room relationships, between players and coaches and players together — many of them clandestine — have become the talk of the town.
WSL clubs are eager to protect themselves (and their assets) as the dam breaks. there is more than team harmony at stake; safeguarding concerns are central to many a dressing-room debate.
In February, Jonathan Morgan was sacked by Sheffield United after the club learned he had a relationship with a teenage player while manager of Leicester. the relationship took place before Leicester were a professional club but that did not matter.
Morgan claimed such relationships were rife in the women’s game and that is not inaccurate. Last week, Leicester suspended Willie Kirk over an alleged relationship with a player.
‘I think player-coach relationships are inappropriate, player to player relationships are inappropriate,’ Chelsea manager Emma Hayes said this week.
‘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.’
‘that’s why I’ve always been an advocate of making sure clubs have minimum standards whether it’s code of conduct, player safeguarding, player welfare. I don’t think it’s just in and around player-coach relationships.’
Hayes was asked to elaborate on how player to player relationships are inappropriate. two of her players, England left back Jess Carter and goalkeeper AnnKatrin Berger, are in a relationship. Hayes also signed Pernille Harder for a world-record fee in 2020, despite the Dane being in a well-publicised relationship with Chelsea captain Magdalena Eriksson. Both players left last summer for Bayern Munich.
‘It’s about the challenges it poses. 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. One might be competing in a position with someone else. You don’t need me to spell that out. It presents challenges.’
HAYES seemed to be making the point that relationships in general could or should be phased out as the professionalisation and finances in the women’s game continues to grow.
Mail Sport is also aware of one elite international team who recently had as many as five couples in the same dressing room. How difficult would it be for a coach to manage that?
We have also been told of one example of a female manager who left a club recently because a relationship with one of her players had come to light. that was not the reason the club provided for her departure. this coach is still working in women’s football.
there are people who work in the women’s game who are horrified by this and think that female coaches having relationships with players is worse than male coaches. ‘ this is a professional environment, not a social club’, as one source put it.
In the last two months, one manager has been sacked for a previous relationship with a player and another suspended pending an investigation.
the issue can no longer hide in the shadows. When I wrote about the matter of player-coach relationships in my women’s football column earlier this week, I didn’t expect such a reaction.
Managers have been asked and have spoken about a subject that has so often remained off the agenda. Casey Stoney and Aston Villa manager Carla Ward are among two managers who have commented publicly.
Stoney, a former England captain and head coach of American club San Diego Wave, made her view abundantly clear: ‘ Playercoach relationships should NEVER happen. THE END.’
this is not a new issue. Mark Sampson was sacked as England manager in 2017 after it emerged he had previously had a relationship with a player he had coached at Bristol Academy. Following Sampson’s sacking, Baroness Sue Campbell, the FA’s head of women’s football, said player- coach relationships were a ‘concern’, an issue that ‘had to be dealt with.’ But it was not really dealt with at all. Relationships persisted behind closed doors and it is only because the women’s game is now under a greater microscope that action is being taken.
the reality that many do not want to acknowledge is that it is easier for clubs to take action against male coaches.
But it is not just male managers that the women’s game has to worry about. Mail Sport has been told of several relationships, past and present, between female coaches and players.
Some took place before the women’s game became professional while others are more recent. Some are not reportable for legal reasons. this is usually because the players or coaches involved have not publicly disclosed their sexuality.
It is essentially easier for female coaches to hide in plain sight. Some clubs will have decisions to make over whether there are consequences for female coaches found to have had relationships with players in the future.
In my column I wrote that there appears to be more acceptance of relationships between female coaches and players. that is because they are even more prevalent than heterosexual relationships. But acceptance was perhaps the wrong word. It is less that people are happy to turn a blind eye and more that it is harder to deal with publicly.
It is much easier for female managers in this instance to get jobs elsewhere than it is for men whose relationships have been exposed.
there are also more complicated examples. Last month, Wales hired Rhian Wilkinson as their manager. Wilkinson, 41, was investigated amid concerns over her conduct as head coach of US club Portland thorns.
Wilkinson said she exchanged messages with one of her players, who had previously been a team-mate, and that the two had expressed feelings for one another but not acted upon them.
Wilkinson said she reported herself to the club, who passed the information to the National Women’s Soccer League.
the investigation exonerated Wilkinson of any wrongdoing but she decided to resign after feeling she had lost the support of the players. Some are said to have felt ‘unsettled and unsafe’.
WSL managers had their say on player- coach relationships this week. Some were much stronger on the issue than others.
West Ham did not permit any questions on the topic while Brighton allowed one, before shutting down the discussion after boss Mikey Harris had said: ‘It’s a really difficult one to answer because I think there’s so much context around the subject that I’m not aware of so I’m not really comfortable giving an answer on something that I don’t have enough context on.’
Others felt more than comfortable tackling the subject.
‘Our job and our duty is to protect players, first and foremost. So to cross that line is unacceptable and it can’t happen,’ Villa boss Ward said.
Spurs boss Robert Vilahamn agreed, saying: ‘I think it’s totally not acceptable. Me as a coach, I am in a power position with players and staff. I think it’s very unprofessional to have a relationship with a player. I don’t think it should be a question we raise here, I think it’s crazy.’
An important but slightly controversial debate was raised by Hayes. While player- coach relationships have been common in women’s football, so too have relationships between players on the same or different teams.
Hayes appeared to irk her own players with her comments. Carter liked a series of posts on X, criticising her manager — including one which described her comments as ‘beyond bonkers’.
Player to player relationships distract from the real issue at play here. Challenging it may be, but they do not create the same power imbalance that exists between a manager and a player.
Kirk’s suspension last week sent a shockwave through the women’s game. Other managers will no doubt be looking over their shoulders, wondering if they may be next to face questions. this is a topic that is not going to go away. the lid that had been kept on this can of worms is off and it is not about to be put back on.
This is a professional environment not a social club