Leicester sack girls’s boss Willie Kirk after alleged relationship with participant
Leicester City have sacked their girls’s group supervisor Willie Kirk. The Foxes had been trying into claims that the Scot had a relationship with one in every of their gamers.
Kirk was suspended in March and the Women’s Super League membership mentioned he was “assisting the club with an internal process”.
Jennifer Foster and Stephen Kirby, his assistants, took over for the final three video games. They will proceed to teach the group till a everlasting new supervisor is picked.
The membership mentioned in a press release: “Following an extensive internal disciplinary process and respecting the club’s obligations to individual privacy, Willie was determined to have breached the team’s code of conduct to a degree that makes his position untenable.
“Established and carried out forward of the beginning of the present season, the code types a part of the membership’s ongoing dedication to professionalising the ladies’s recreation for the reason that takeover of LCFC Women in 2020, selling a performance-led tradition amongst gamers, coaches and technical employees.”
Kirk, who is 45 years old, joined Leicester in July 2022. He became the manager last November after Lydia Bedford left. The team is ninth in the league but they have lost their last two games.
They are still in the FA Cup semi-finals and will play against Tottenham on April 14. Kirk’s dismissal comes after Sheffield United let go of Jonathan Morgan in February due to an alleged relationship with a player during his time at Leicester.
England Lionesses manager Sarina Wiegman thinks that relationships between a manager and a player should not be allowed.
“I believe player-coach relationships are very inappropriate,” she said this week. “I believe we must always not settle for that. That’s not wholesome. That is mainly what it’s. I believe in our surroundings, it is a skilled setting, it’s all about performing and it ought to all the time be secure.”
“Things can occur but it surely’s inappropriate and all of us needs to be very conscious of that. It is widespread sense. We all know that if we’re on this setting, that’s actually inappropriate. I believe if all of us take our accountability, then issues would not occur.”
Chelsea manager Emma Hayes has also called manager-player relationships “inappropriate”. Aston Villa boss Carla Ward shared the same view when asked about the subject earlier this month.
“Our job and obligation is to guard gamers,” she said. “So to cross that line is unacceptable and it will possibly’t occur.
“It makes me very angry because we’re here to set an environment, a comfortable place where people come to work, where they feel safe. I just don’t understand anyone who crosses that line.”
Bristol City’s head coach, Lauren Smith, acknowledged: “It is still a position of power between coaches and players and there is no grey area. It’s unacceptable and it shouldn’t happen.
“I consider it is a sackable offence. That goes not only for the top coach place it is a place of energy inside the staffing group.”