Gary Lineker called CEO of EFL club to hire first ever female manager but faced pushback

Gary Lineker says he contacted Leicester City urging them to hire Emma Hayes as their manager.

Currently in charge of the United States women’s national team, Hayes would have become the first permanent female boss in EFL history.

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‘Not a PR stunt’

But Lineker claims he was met with resistance when he made the suggestion to Leicester, his beloved hometown club where he spent the first seven years of his career.

Lineker told Hayes herself on The Rest is Football: “When Leicester got relegated for the first time [from the Premier League in 2023], I called Susan Whelan, who was the then CEO of Leicester – who is no longer there, sadly – and I called her to say, ‘I think you should go for Emma as the Leicester City coach’.

“And I was going, ‘I think for many reasons. A: obviously, she’s clearly a brilliant coach – so it’s not like some kind of PR stunt’ – although PR-wise, I think it would have been brilliant: the first female manager of a professional men’s team in our country. And I think we [Leicester] had the players that you’d have done really well with.

“And she said, ‘I think that’s a really good idea… but I’m not quite sure the owners are ready to make that step yet.

“So, I just wonder if you’d have been interested in that at all – but that is honestly the truth.”

After Dean Smith oversaw the club’s relegation from the top flight at the end of the 2022/23 season, Leicester moved to replace him with Enzo Maresca – who steered them to promotion at the first time of asking.

The Foxes have since gone through four permanent managers and were relegated to League One following a disastrous 2025/26 Championship campaign.

They unveiled Russell Martin as their new boss earlier this month.

Responding to Lineker, Hayes stressed that it’s ultimately up to club owners to make such appointments.

“You know what, I appreciate you saying that, but managers get asked this question – we’re the ones who have to sit through that in a press conference,” she replied. And I always say, ‘You’re asking the wrong person’. You have to ask those that own football clubs why they don’t do those things.”

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‘Work to be done’

Speaking about the issue back in 2024, Hayes said she felt the men’s game was not ready to appoint a female manager.

“I’ve said this a million times over – you can find a female pilot, a female doctor, a female lawyer, a female banker, but you can’t find a female coach working in the men’s game, leading men,” she told the BBC. “It just shows you how much work there is to be done.”

The previous year, then League Two club Forest Green Rovers made history by naming academy head Hannah Dingley as their caretaker manager following the departure of Duncan Ferguson.

Hayes, who led Chelsea to seven Women’s Super League titles, took the United States job in 2024 and led them to gold at that summer’s Olympics in Paris.

In October that year, she received the inaugural Johan Cruyff Trophy as the best coach in the women’s game.

Hayes has recently been providing World Cup punditry for ITV, delivering tactical insights with her much talked about tactics board.

Lineker himself also made a guest appearance on ITV earlier in the tournament, having ended his 26-year association with the BBC last year.