Manager left England with a one-way ticket and $1,000 to pursue her dream. On Sunday she takes charge in a Champions League final
“When did I recognise that she was any good in her business?” says Sid Hayes, the 80-year-old father of Chelsea’s manager, Emma Hayes. “I’m going to tell you a story about the London Olympics.”
As Hayes sat next to her dad at Wembley for the Olympic women’s football final, she was to all intents and purposes unemployed. “There was the ceremony on the pitch where the three teams [USA, Japan and third-placed Canada] collected their medals,” Sid recalls. “Emma said: ‘Dad, you see those 50 people out there? I’ve coached 40 of them.’ I thought: ‘Wow, but you’re sitting here unemployed?’ It was time to come back.” That month, August 2012, she took the job at Chelsea.
