The SFA just don’t take the women’s game seriously... there isn’t proper financial backing
Kirk insists Scotland job isn’t right for him just now as he focuses on Everton Ladies
FROM humble beginnings at Preston Athletic to Wembley finals and Zoom calls with Carlo Ancelotti at Everton. Might Willie Kirk’s coaching career even take him all the way to Hampden to succeed Shelley Kerr as Scotland Women’s national manager?
Kirk’s Everton Ladies contested the FA Cup final in November after a year interrupted by coronavirus, losing 3-1 to Manchester City.
The 42-year-old from Edinburgh has just signed a contract extension with the Toffees that will keep him at the helm until 2023, having joined the club in December 2018.
With the new deal providing security — and Kirk and his partner becoming parents to baby Finley in July — life is good.
So, what to do if the SFA ask him to take over as coach of the Scotland Women’s team?
‘It is a tough one,’ he admitted. “I think you need to be offered it until you know how you feel about it.
‘I know my partner would move to Scotland in a minute — she’s English but loves it in Scotland!
‘I’m happy at Everton. I also feel a loyalty to those I have brought in to the club. I do see myself being Scotland manager but I see it as a job in ten years’ time, where the day-to-day stuff has become tough, but you don’t know how much your heart will rule your head.”
Laughing, Kirk added; ‘I wish the Scotland job had come up a few weeks earlier and I might have been able to use that i n my negotiating with Everton!
‘I think it’s a short-term gig just now. I think that group of players they’ve got could go on and do something special in Australia. First of all, you’ve got to qualify but it would be a great experience going to a World Cup.’
Perhaps frustratingly, Kirk cannot see the SFA paying compensation to bring in a replacement for Kerr, who resigned just before Christmas with Scotland unable to qualify for the Women’s Euro 2022 in England.
‘I don’t know what they’ll do,’ he said. ‘I don’t think the Scottish FA have ever taken it as seriously as it should be taken.
‘I don’t think they’ve ever given it the proper financial backing they should have. I think there have been a lot of false promises.
‘I think the work that (Kerr’s predecessor) Anna Signeul did was fantastic. I think Shelley has done some good work behind the scenes, too, but I feel it’s always been an uphill battle.
‘A little bit of investment goes so much further in the women’s game and because they had a little bit of success on small budgets, they just kept them on small budgets.
‘I’m not sure if they will ever do what they could do, because I think they’ve got a special group just now.’
Kirk believes there will be a high level of interest for the vacant manager’s role, and the SFA may decide to appoint internally rather than look elsewhere. He’s confident meanwhile that Kerr will continue to find success in the years ahead.
‘I’ve known Shelley for more than 30 years, so I respect her and get on very well with her. But watching Scotland since the Women’s World Cup in France, I haven’t seen a team playing for each other or for her, and that’s a real shame. She might now go into the men’s game. She’s one woman who could certainly hold her own there.
‘Shelley deals with footballers and wants to be seen as a football coach. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was in the men’s game. The difficulty is, and it’s similar when people ask if I would go back into the men’s game — you get to such an elite level in the women’s game, that to make that transition across, I don’t know what level you’d be accepted in.
‘Let’s say I qualified for the Champions League with Everton, would a men’s board in the Scottish Premiership see that as success? Would they recognise that as success or would they say – ‘well he did it in the women’s game, so it doesn’t really count’?
‘I think that’s what you’re up against. It will be Shelley or Emma Hayes in England who will break that mould and break that opinionated, male-dominated boardroom.”
While a decade from now might suit Kirk to become Scotland boss, if he were to be approached by the SFA in the coming weeks or months his decision would not be an easy one and he’s adamant that, as of yet, no contact has been made by the Scottish FA.
He admits, meanwhile, that there are big concerns about the dearth of emerging Scottish talent when it comes to both the domestic and international set-up.
Kirk explained: ‘We’re paying very little attention to the Scottish market now. We don’t see the talent coming through. I think there was a four-or-five-year spell where a lot of players left the Scottish Premier and I don’t see the English clubs looking up there very much now.
‘That’s a shame and I think that’s worrying. You look at the vacancy for the Scotland job and I think that if someone was to take that on a short-term basis, they could get a lot of success in the next two years leading into Australia.
‘I think it could be a bit of a worry taking it on for the long-term because I don’t know where the next group of Lisa Evans and Emma Mitchells and Chloe Arthurs and Caroline Weirs are coming from. They’ve got a squad right now at a really good age.’
A call from Hampden could give Kirk more sleepless nights than baby Finley. He may have to choose between his nation calling and unfinished business with Everton.
‘Whenever I leave, I want to leave ensuring there’s some silver in the cabinet. It’s probably stupid to think that’s a WSL title, but I think Champions League qualification is possible and I think one of the cups — the FA Cup is realistic.’
And while he’s building his side, the 42-year-old is happy to take as much advice as possible from the man helping to rejuvenate Everton’s fortunes in the English Premier League.
‘It’s a little bit surreal having Carlo Ancelotti calling you on Zoom, but it’s good,’ added Kirk.
‘He has certainly been showing a lot of interest. There have been regular updates when the teams are playing at similar times, so it’s a nice touch.
‘He came to watch training and he spoke to me and the girls and basically told me ‘to pop in for a coffee whenever you want’.
Kirk has revealed the former Napoli, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid manager continued his support throughout lockdown, and was on hand to deliver some inspiration as they prepared for the FA Cup final in November.
‘He was just talking about when he won it (with Chelsea) and them have a saying in Italy — “you don’t play the final, you win the final”,’ said Kirk. ‘He’s a really humble guy.
‘The ultimate aim for me, personally, is to win the Champions League as a coach, regardless of what club or what country that’s in.
‘Getting there with Everton would be a bit more special because no-one expects us to get there.’
It could be a fascinating few years ahead.
said he wanted to be remembered. Many believe he is the greatest. Maradona thought he could have been even better.
‘What a great player I could have been if I’d taken care of myself,’ he says in an interview in the new book, The Maradona Opus, which comes in a hand-made presentation box and weighs in at 35 pounds with large pages of 24 x 16 inches.
‘If I’d looked after myself I would have been 10 times the player Pele was! There would have been no comparison. I would have had Pele in my pocket if I’d taken care of myself.’
That, of course, he did not. His drug addiction, on occasions, threatened to overshadow his career. There was the 15-month ban for a positive test for cocaine in 1991. He was sent home from the World Cup in 1994.
It is a part of his life from which Maradona refused to shy away. ‘Drugs?’ he said. ‘It’s a worldwide reality. It’s not like it’s just me who has gone through this.
‘Millions of dollars are spent on drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. I’m not the one who discovered it and it won’t die along with me.’
He was frank but not proud. And there were regrets.
‘The only person I harmed was myself and when I did, I shut myself away and the ones who suffered were my wife Claudia and the girls,’ he added. ‘I lost out on many years with my daughters, and you can’t buy that time with all the money in the world.
‘So if there’s something I really regret in life, it would be not having experienced with my daughters what I should have.’
It is all now a part of his legacy. And still the people adore him, the light as well as the dark. ‘I’m a kid from the streets,’ said Maradona. ‘My popularity will never decrease because I come from the people.’