Chelsea manager Emma Hayes says women are “routinely used to dealing with systemic misogyny and bullying” in football, responding to a range of comments from ex-Premier League player Joey Barton.

Hayes was asked to respond to comments made by Barton, who said on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this week that women “should not be talking with any kind of authority” about the men’s game, later railing against what he perceived as “tokenism” and a lack of “meritocracy”.

“I cannot take a thing [women] say serious in the men’s arena,” wrote Barton, who was recently fired as Bristol Rovers manager less than halfway through a three-year contract, with his team battling in the English third tier.

Hayes, who will leave Chelsea at the end of the season to become manager of the United States, did not want to name Barton specifically but spoke more broadly about the environment women work in.

“The realities are male privilege has always been at the centre of football in this country,” Hayes said.

Chelsea player Sam Kerr with coach Emma Hayes on the sideline of a Women's Super League match with Liverpool that was called off

Emma Hayes (right) is on her way out at Chelsea to take up a role as the US Women’s National Team coach.(Getty Images: Clive Rose)

“I feel that sport is the last place in society where that male privilege exists.”

Since joining Chelsea in 2012, Hayes has won six Women’s Super League titles as well as five FA Cups and two League Cups. She has also been a pundit on British television for both men’s and women’s football.

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“If you haven’t experienced systemic misogyny, like lots of us have, you can’t for one moment understand how detrimental some of these conversations are knowing that anything anyone says just enables an absolute pile on, particularly on social media,” she said.

“When it comes to the sport of football in this case, we have to remember that society isn’t always as well represented across the media or across the game in coaching or playing.”

Barton on social media specifically called out an Instagram story posted by one of his former clubs, Manchester City, of a woman speaking to camera about the team’s upcoming Champions League clash with Leipzig.

Broadcaster Bianca Westwood, who was the first woman reporter on Sky’s Soccer Saturday, said Barton’s language “invites extreme reactions and standard misogynistic venom”.

“It is water off a duck’s back to me now, but it can be extremely damaging to your confidence and mental when you’re just starting out,” she said.

“Apparently I’m acceptable because I’ve done my time, but that’s not what was said when I did my first live match reporting.

“I was also ‘ticking a box’ and constantly sent a wide variety of abusive and graphic messages, yet I’d spent 10 years working as an assistant producer on Soccer Saturday before I got the chance to report.”

Barton appeared alongside Westwood on Piers Morgan’s show Uncensored, and repeatedly dodged questions about why male commentators like Des Lynam and Martin Tyler who never played the men’s game had not attracted his ire.

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Reuters/ABC

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