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I hope you all had a great long weekend forgetting your troubles and celebrating new beginnings... 31/7 is back to remind you that some things never change, and for as long as Emma Hayes has a functioning mouth, she will use it!
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This weekend, the WoSo Empress caused a shit storm by criticising a man with little regard for justness or the consequences. It's a bit murky out there, with a couple of the nation's foremost rags chipping in to say 'but WHAT if a MAN had HIT a WOMAN' 😱, so I've tried my utmost to keep my comment on this as #relevant to the situation at hand.
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This one is a bit tricky but plenty intriguing 🤓 so I'd love to know your thoughts. You know where to find me!
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Everyone is kicking off this week because of how Emma Hayes conducted herself as head coach of Chelsea FC in the Continental Tyres League Cup final at Molineux on Sunday.
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Ann Katrin-Berger, the Blues’ 33-year-old internationally capped goalkeeper, was reportedly changing her shirt on the bench when Stina Blackstenius scored the goal that won it for Arsenal in extra time, suggesting that Hayes was more concerned with winning the penalty shootout than making sure her side got to one, first.
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Hayes could be forgiven for having a day off from being the perfect manager. In March, the Blues played eight games — two Champions League, two League Cup, one FA Cup and three Women’s Super League. That’s two games, every week, four weeks in a row. Kind of insane!
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I used to hate hearing Jürgen Klopp rabbit on about how unethical and disgraceful it was that ‘his boys’ had to play a million games in several different competitions at once. When you support a team who seldom progress past the third round of the FA Cup, hearing complaints about how many chances his team has to show that they are brilliant at football was annoying. Don’t like the games, don’t play them. Shut up and eat your success!
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Hayes has been comparatively polite, quietly getting on with the gargantuan task of spinning four different plates at once in the hopes of converting them into four trophies.
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She has won the quadruple before, assisting legendary Arsenal manager Vic Akers to all three domestic trophies and the UEFA Women’s Cup (now Champions League) back in 2007. These days, it’s harder to be dominant, because with the growing professionalisation of the women’s game, so many other clubs have a real fighting chance of winning them, too.
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It’s harder, but Hayes has got all of the right tools to do it. Few teams in the world could qualify for the Champions League semi-final with talents such as Lauren James and Niamh Charles left unused on the bench, as Hayes did against Ajax last week.
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“We will give you everything — you put it in,” she said. And poof, the formula works. Chelsea’s are some of the best looked-after players, and it tells in the never-say-die winning attitude that has meant you can never bet against them, even when trailing in a cup final with only minutes to go.
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Hayes knows all of this. She couldn’t have been better placed to bring home the coveted quadruple for Chelsea, yet she fell at the first hurdle on Sunday as the League Cup went to their north London rivals. If it were me, I’d be pretty happy for everyone to be talking about something other than how the responsibility for defeat lay at my own feet.
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The final was the last meeting between Jonas Eidevall and Hayes before the latter takes charge of the US Women’s National team later this year. It was destined to be a big occasion, the climax of three years' locking horns as leaders of two of England’s best teams.
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But what has been a relatively benign rivalry turned sour on Sunday as Hayes gave Eidevall a big shove when the pair came together to shake hands, later explaining that she was upset with the way that he had acted in the dying moments of the game.
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"I think there's a way to behave on the side of the pitch,” she said. “I've been in women's football a long time and I don't think we should tolerate male aggression like we did today.
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"Fronting up or squaring up to a player is something that's unacceptable.”
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Eidevall’s side of the story was that he had reasonably complained when Erin Cuthbert picked up a fresh ball (different from the one which had been kicked off the pitch) in her haste to restart the game — with just minutes to find an equaliser — after the teams had agreed, at Chelsea’s request, to use a ‘single ball’ system, ahead of kick-off.
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"To be honest, I can't really take it seriously,” said Eidevall of Hayes’ accusations that he had tainted the match with 'male aggression'.
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Without knowing what was said on the touchline, it’s difficult to judge just how ‘aggressive’ Eidevall was — though the officials deemed his conduct worthy of a yellow card — but the reference to his maleness feels unnecessary.
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Aggressive behaviour regularly tarnishes what would otherwise be a great afternoon of football, both in the men’s and the women’s games. It feels especially infuriating when men perpetrate aggression in women’s football, a space tentatively establishing itself after a long history of exclusion at the hands of… men.
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It’s happened a few times with my team Leeds Hyde Park. Aggressive, shouty opposition coaches set the tone for uncomfortably edgy games that would have been enjoyably competitive without them. In 2022, Birmingham City Ladies manager Marcus Bignot lashed out with homophobic abuse when his side were losing to Spurs at St Andrew’s. Last summer, a man in a suit grabbed Jenni Hermoso’s face and claimed an unwanted kiss to steal headlines that belonged to successful female athletes.
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Emma Hayes has been in this game much longer than me so is probably, rightfully, pretty tired of it all. I too, have felt the urge to shove. But with the cortisol eased off long after the final whistle , she was wrong to say what she did in her press conference, undermining a relevant discussion by bandying it about as a diversion tactic in the wake of defeat.
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I’ve watched footage of Eidevall v Cuthbert a few times, speculating about who he is directing his frustration at, examining the change in her body language, looking for answers to the question of whether Hayes’ comment was justified.
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But while I don’t completely understand what went down, what I do know is we’ve seen this a hundred times before — manager and players get overheated with emotion and behave in a way that they’re not proud of. And isn't it kind of... fun?
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What kind of space do we want women’s football to be? Every fan will have a different answer.
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I am but one fan with a vision for utopia. Mine looks a lot like the men’s game I’ve grown up with. Players scrap because they are desperate to win. Sometimes they are rude to each other but the animosity doesn’t supersede respect and it never feels unsafe. Catty managers sling shit at each other just like the rest of us, but their words aren’t the most interesting event in the week’s football. I’d like there to be less diving and, while a little bit of ego makes things interesting, but I’d like to see fewer people like Cristiano Ronaldo swallowing up all the air within entire football ecosystems and destabilising the crucial team element of the game. I’d like footballers to be paid more normal wages and, to come with lower stakes, accordingly less tedious scrutiny on hair-splitting decisions.
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I was kind of thrilled to see Hayes give Eidevall a shove when they went to shake hands at the final whistle. Whether we like it or not, humans are inherently drama-seeking individuals. We love hearing strangers’ gossip on the train and listening to our neighbours argue through the walls. Sport gives us a front seat to some of the most enduring relationships, grim conflicts and epic, decade-spanning storylines, all for the fraction of the cost of a West End ticket.
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To my mind, Hayes’ shove is the natural, climactic endpoint to which everything since 31/7 has been tending toward. I remember when commentators were too afraid to point out that a player had made a shocking pass; now, two protagonists are finally delivering on everything which their sanitized predecessors hadn’t dared to do.
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Lately on Twitter I saw a slow motion GIF of rising college basketball star Caitlin Clark mouthing some choice words in reaction to something which had happened on the court, very much in the style of Jill Scott on 31/7. Someone shared it, complaining that this young woman was setting a poor example, to which another person responded saying that women athletes don’t live to inspire children. People on the internet are allowed to disagree on what they think sportspeople are ‘for’, but it’s up to Caitlin Clark what kind of athlete she wants to be.
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Similarly, no one but Hayes gets to determine how she conducts herself as a football manager. Maybe these comments take the heat off her players who, unburdened of criticism for their failure in the final, go on to win all three other trophies. In years to come, Hayes reflects on her time as a manager who wasn’t always nice but did whatever she could to win. She chooses her legacy.
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As such, I will defend her right to embarrass herself on live television. Hayes’ strop is a terrible example of how to react when your team lose. Terrible! What’s more, it’s a poor example of how to react if you think someone is behaving inappropriately. Imagine how much more weight Hayes’ press conference criticism would have carried if she hadn’t physically lashed out at Eidevall first.
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But none of us are perfect and I don’t think kids stand to learn anything by watching robots conduct themselves immaculately in sport.
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Let the people scrap, I say!
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What do you think sportspeople are for? What does your women's football utopia look like? Have you ever acted dishonourably when invited to shake someone's hand? I'd love to know! Hit reply to this email or send your thoughts to [email protected].
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Looking for a new direction
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Amid all the changes since 49ers Enterprises’ takeover, writes Flora Snelson, Leeds United Women are still where they were.
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