Emma Hayes with a message on ITV

SHE has seen it all in football from kickabouts at Market Road to the Olympic Games, so it should be little surprise that Emma Hayes knew exactly how to deal with the social media trolls.

The former Chelsea head coach faced a barrage of sexist comments over her analysis for the World Cup on ITV.

It seems some male viewers still don’t believe that a woman can know much about football, while others couldn’t resist insisting she looked like she was in a kitchen while delivering expert tactics insight during hydration breaks.

Sidi Hayes

So on Sunday, she turned around to reveal the message ‘she will change the world’ printed on the back of her camo shirt – a defiant choice of fashion produced by New York designer Vesta Klozet.

At the same time, she praised a man who encouraged her to break through the barriers to women’s football.

“One last thing, happy Father’s Day to everyone at home. I know it’s a great day and it’s also my father’s heavenly birthday today and I want to say one thing to you dad up in heaven,” she said.

“Thank you for giving me so much confidence to have the opportunity to do this and so I leave you with this beautiful view.”

It was then she turned to the vista of New York enjoyed by presenters and pundits working for ITV during the tournament.

Sid Hayes, Ms Hayes’ father – or “Sidi” as he was known – was himself also a pioneer of women’s football.

The Vesta Klozet shirt

In fact, he was a father figure to hundreds of north London teenage players over the years at local teams.

He played a crucial role in building an Arsenal team which dominated women’s football, but also set up the youth leagues and running teams for young men and women, scooping dozens of trophies in the process.

He died in 2022, aged 82, after a battle with lung cancer. He ran the family business selling theatre tickets and a currency exchange in Jubilee Market Hall, Covent Garden, and worked right up until his death.

Ms Hayes, meanwhile, grew up in Camden Town and went to Parliament Hill School as a teenager. She first appeared in our papers as ambitious 20-something who took the risk of swapping her sports development work in West Euston for a new life coaching across the pond in New York.

Ms Hayes never looked back after that, and has been praised for her inside out knowledge of the sport at the World Cup.

She knows more about football than you

THE trolls at home must have been fuming with steam coming out of their ears when Emma Hayes perfectly took the online abuse in her stride.

During a tactics segment during a Brazil match (pictured above), she looked into the camera said: “Let’s focus on the first half. I know that’s a challenge for some of us at home. But I’m going to encourage us to look at some of the things going on in the game.”

Ms Hayes is more than qualified to be a pundit at the World Cup after a lifetime in the game. She has won a host of international awards for football managers and stuffed the Chelsea trophy cabinet with silverware with seven league titles and five FA Cups. She led the United States to Olympic gold last year.

In our “Stop the Trolls” special issue last year, she told the New Journal the rude comments didn’t hurt her and she didn’t engage with – but she worried for young players.

“I know what to listen to and what not to, but that doesn’t make it any easier,” she said.