Aston Villa head coach says player-coach relationships are "sackable offences"
Aston Villa Women head coach Carla Ward believes player-coach relationships should be a sackable offence following allegations against Leicester City manager Willie Kirk came to light last week.
Foxes boss Kirk was absent from the touchline for his team's FA Cup quarter-final win over Liverpool on Saturday after being suspended by the club while it investigates claims of a relationship with one of his players.
A club statement read: "Willie Kirk is assisting the club with an internal process, the outcomes of which will be determined in due course."
Asked about the nature of player-coach relationships in her press conference on Thursday, Villans boss Ward was frank in her assessment of clubs and its employees as stewards of the game and its players.
"Our job and our duty is to protect players, first and foremost, so to cross that line is unacceptable and it can’t happen," she said.
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"It makes me very angry because we’re here to set an environment, a comfortable place that people come to work, where they feel safe, where they feel backed, where they feel looked after. I just don’t understand anyone who crosses that line. The game is professionalised."
She added: "When you talk about where does the line get drawn, I think it’s very simple, when the game got professionalised, you can’t cross that line. There’s talk of pre-professionalised, there was a social aspect.
"When I was a player, it was a very social aspect, but now we’re talking about levels that it’s parent-teacher in my opinion. You can’t do it."
Asked if it should be a sackable offence, Ward's response was a clear "yes".
Willie Kirk was not on the touchline for Leicester City's FA Cup quarter-final after the emergence of allegations (Photo by Morgan Harlow/Getty Images)The advancement and evolution of the women's game has thrust the nature of player-coach relationships under a fierce microscope of late with a number of high-profile cases having emerged in the women's game in England in recent years.
Former Lionesses boss Mark Sampson was sacked in 2017 after a previous relationship with a player at Bristol Academy emerged. Meanwhile, Jonathan Morgan was sacked by Sheffield United earlier this year after the club discovered he had a relationship with a player when in charge of Leicester City.
New Wales Women manager Rhian Wilkinson was investigated by her former club Portland Thorns for a potentially inappropriate player-coach relationship at a time when the league was rocked by managerial scandals, though the former Canada international was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Ward is not the only Women's Super League coach to speak out about player-coach relationships. Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall echoed Ward's sentiments in his press conference, stating: "I think it’s very inappropriate for a number of reasons. It’s a clear no with relationships between player and manager.
"I think if you look in women’s football, when you look in the past there is no doubt if you look and read in NWSL for example, there is major issues within the game and there have been major issues in the past as well which probably, unfortunately, tells you there still are issues at some places.
"That concerns me from a player welfare perspective."
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Jonas Eidevall called on leagues and governing bodies to do more to to aid safe guarding efforts of players (Arsenal FC via Getty Images)Eidevall called on governing bodies and leagues to implement better safeguarding processes to deter the existence of such relationships while fostering safe environments which encourage transparency.
"That’s just to make sure that players in this instance have the relevant communication ways to be able to report if anything inappropriate is going on," he said. "That could be inappropriate relationships but it could also be other things. It’s safeguarding and making sure people are safe."
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