Changing the narrative
Emma Hayes and the art of the post-match quote
Emma Hayes will go down in history as one of the greatest club managers in women’s football. She will undoubtedly be remembered as among the most influential.
For me, one of the things that will live long in my memory from covering her Chelsea tenure, will be her unmatched ability to guide the narrative - whatever the result on the pitch.
Sunday night was a case in point. For the very last time, she was standing in the middle of the Kingsmeadow pitch (her home ground for 12 years) and, clutching her five-year-old son Harry’s hand in front of 4,289 fans, she rewrote the script. “Let me clear,” she said into the microphone. “It’s not fucking over.”
The expletive, the pause for dramatic effect, the glint in her eye, more than a mischievous smile on her lips as the crowd went wild. It was classic Emma Hayes.
It reminded me of that famous scene in The Wolf of Wall Street, where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jordan Belfort takes to the mic on the trading floor and declares to his stunned, enamoured minions: “I’m not leaving, I’m not fucking leaving.”
Of course, the difference here is that Hayes is leaving at the end of this season - and that won’t change, she is taking up the USA women’s national team job in a matter of weeks. (She is also not a doomed, corrupt stockbroker, by the way). But, in true Belfort style, her goodbye speech at Kingsmeadow turned into a rallying cry, made all the more poignant as it came mere days after she very publicly conceded the Women’s Super League title to Manchester City.
This phoenix-risen-from-the-ashes moment marked the end of a remarkable day in the WSL title race - City lost to Arsenal in stoppage time, Chelsea then beat Bristol City 8-0, obliterating their goal difference deficit and regaining control of the title race. But it had also been a bonkers week. And before that, it had been a gut-wrenching month.
For those not familiar (or who have struggled to keep up), here’s the lowdown: there was Hayes shoving Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall after losing the League Cup final and then controversially accusing him of “male aggression”; after that, in lieu of an apology, she cited a Robert Frost poem to the press; just a week or so later Chelsea suffered refereeing heartbreak in the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona; then they lost 4-3 to Liverpool.
In the space of 30 days three trophies had fallen by the wayside and, with the subsequent Liverpool loss last week, Hayes announced she had abandoned hope of winning the WSL title too, despite still having three games left to play. Former Chelsea player Karen Carney forlornly described her reaction as “weird” on Sky Sports. Then, on Sunday the story took another unexpected u-turn as City bottled it, and the hunger was back in Hayes’s eyes at Kingsmeadow.
Amid the chaos (some very much of her own making), Hayes has kept consistent on one thing: her ability to shape the narrative. Whether in control of it or not, she has been at the centre - the one grabbing the headlines, the person making people sit up and pay attention.
Attending an Emma Hayes press conference is guaranteed entertainment. I have been at plenty over the last five or so seasons, and don’t think I have ever left one and wondered why I bothered showing up. Quite the opposite really, it is always worth the trip - and that is saying something when it comes to this business. Even when Hayes is hardly giving you anything, coy in her answers or keeping her cards close to her chest, her motivations remain fascinating, like a puzzle to be worked out.
Sat behind the microphone, Hayes can be all things at once. She can be generous, waxing lyrical on topics or players that she enjoys, delivering stellar sound bites, funny one-liners or even throwing out a Star Wars reference. She is a master at working the room, often inviting laughter and a sense of fun to proceedings.
She can just as soon cut you down though. If you make assumptions about her decision-making, good luck to you. Her late father Sid once told the Guardian that his daughter could tell if someone was lying, that she had a knack for reading people (she once held ambitions to become a spy). Many a reporter has felt the burn of her discerning glare when a question has fallen flat or been batted away.
I have often found myself sat in the poky press room at Kingsmeadow after a match unable to judge which way she might take the conversation. That unpredictability is part of Hayes’s charm. She challenges you as a reporter to find a new angle, pursue a fresh line of questioning. The reward could be a considered answer or even one of her revealing anecdotes, the holy grail for journalists keen to peel back another layer and better understand one of the game’s most colourful characters.
She uses the press room to take a stand on things she cares about: raising awareness for endometriosis and women’s health; advocating for mothers in sport, as well as player welfare; pushing for better standards across the club game, including on issues like the dwindling numbers of female coaches at the top level. She shows vulnerability too, speaking about her grief at difficult personal moments in her life, including the loss of her father Sid earlier this season.
Hayes showed patience with the growing pains that women’s football continues to experience, even when she was asked over and over again about whether she had ambitions to be the first woman to manage in the men’s football pyramid, after being linked to various clubs. She understands better than most that the relationship with sport and the media needs to be reciprocal, even when it can be a source of personal annoyance.
At times in her career, Hayes has even expressly thanked and embraced the media - which cannot be said of all managers. I saw her go out of her way to show kindness and respect to every type of creator: from journalists representing the national newspapers to committed bloggers who have championed the game for decades.
She has also made mistakes, put her foot in it. Her recent comments about “inappropriate” relationships between team-mates were widely panned, and she apologised. I’ve seen her kick out at fair headlines as well as unfair ones. She has recently become more defensive, as her distraction tactics spun wide of the mark.
But, through it all, at least Hayes never shrank away from the power of her own personality, was never afraid to bring her less filtered point of view to the table. In an era of sanitised club statements and cliche-speak, that is something to be commended and celebrated - especially in the women’s game, where personality is needed to keep growing attendances and viewing figures.
Many male managers in football have held similar influence. One of the most significant examples was Brian Clough, someone Hayes has incidentally cited as one of her heroes, admiring his “honesty” and how he expressed his opinions as much as his coaching. When Hayes started at Chelsea, it was a rare thing to see a woman in football form part of any media narrative at all, let alone direct it with every word she utters. Whether or not you agree with her methods or message, few women in football have had such an unapologetic presence.
That kind of attention has weighed heavy recently. She deleted her social media last week, after discussing the pressure of managerial life with Liverpool’s outgoing men’s manager Jurgen Klopp. As things seemed to spiral, she expressed significant resentment and disillusionment.
“I won’t miss it, for sure,” she said of the press commitments. “Of course I have to do press and media and there’s lots of amazing things that come with it. What I’ve learned is, the volume of abuse you have to tolerate is unacceptable… We might have to accept that but guess what will happen? There will be an even bigger distance between everything we do with you guys and for me, that’s the sad thing that’s leaving the game.”
Before her Chelsea side ran rings around Bristol City on Sunday night, she was dismissive about the media as a whole: “It doesn’t matter what I say, you’re going to turn the narrative into something else.”
No one outside of Hayes and managers in similar positions can claim to ever fully understand what that spotlight feels like. We have witnessed a rare period in which she lost her grip on her story’s direction. It was clearly uncomfortable for her and no doubt for some sections of the women’s football media pack too. They are there to report fairly and honestly, not to cheerlead, but can still empathise with a person they report on weekly.
To Hayes’s credit, she has never rejected her platform as unofficial figurehead for the women’s game. She also understands that there is always an advantage to be played, even at what looked like her lowest point.
Watching a title run implosion, other managers might have followed a familiar script. “We don’t need to panic”, “we’ll fight to the end” or - my personal favourite - “we’ll take it one game at a time”. But Hayes is not most managers. Saying the WSL title race was over for Chelsea may have been a completely genuine, emotional reaction to the situation. But, watching it play out on TV and knowing what we know about Hayes’s canny media tactics, I was among those who saw it differently. There was a touch of Hayes sensing an opportunity. It may be one of her more elaborate and inspired narrative ploys, but appearing to give up was her way of firmly shifting the attention off her players and piling it onto Gareth Taylor’s team in Manchester.
Maybe it planted a seed of doubt in the City locker room, which led to them buckling under the enormous pressure, or maybe it would have happened anyway. Hayes cannot control every result, nor every narrative. But she is nothing if not a serial winner and if there was a margin to gain, you can be sure she was ready to seize it.
Regardless of where you sit on that particular debate, Hayes got people talking in a way only she ever does. I am certain the WSL will never find another storyteller quite like her.
Recommendations
I’m a big fan of Counter Pressed podcast, and their reaction to the mad WSL weekend was one of their best episodes this season. Flo, Becky and Jessy bring you analysis of the games, but they talk about the culture around women’s football and offer a general vibe check when it comes to social media reaction too. Above all, they’re just fun to listen to - and you can do so here.
A big shoutout to Girls on the Ball too, who have kindly provided the image for this post and continue to be a force through their committed women’s football coverage, be it their podcasting, writing or creating social media content. You can follow Sophie and Rachel on Instagram and X.
Lastly, Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka’s epic Madrid Open final was difficult to sum up. But Matt Futterman of The Athletic did a great job of mapping out why it was more than just a match, and the context it exists within. You can read his story here.
One last thing
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Speak soon,
Molly x