After Arsenal beat Chelsea to win the Conti Cup, Jonas Eidevall and Emma Hayes were involved in a heated exchange that culminated in Hayes shoving Eidevall.
Arsenal secured a dramatic 1-0 victory over Chelsea in extra time of the Continental Cup final, but the post-match spotlight has fallen on a fiery exchange between managers Jonas Eidevall and Emma Hayes.
The Gunners retained their trophy after Stina Blackstenius‘ late winner, but their celebrations were overshadowed by a moment of controversy at the final whistle.
Following the handshake, footage emerged of Hayes shoving Eidevall, with the Chelsea boss clearly unhappy about something. When questioned about the incident, Hayes alluded to “male aggression” on the touchline, suggesting Eidevall’s behaviour warranted a stronger response than the yellow card he received.
Emma Hayes pushing Jonas Eidevall at the end… 😬 pic.twitter.com/yUjE99WsXw
— Fanzine WSL (@FanzineWSL) March 31, 2024
“I think there’s a way to behave on the side of the pitch,” Hayes said. “I’ve been in women’s football a long time and I don’t think we should tolerate male aggression like we did today. Fronting up or squaring up to a player is something that’s unacceptable.”
Eidevall, however, painted a different picture of the events leading to the push. He claims the disagreement stemmed from a pre-match discussion about using one ball or multiple balls during the game which then resulted in a confrontation, of sorts, between him and a Chelsea player during the game.
“My word on what was happening would be that before the game we had a discussion between the clubs about whether to use one ball or multi-ball system,” Eidevall explained.
“In this situation, Arsenal said multi-ball, Chelsea said one ball. The decision was to play the final on a one ball system. The ball goes out of play, the Chelsea player wants a new ball to take a quick throw-in and I said ‘we play with only one ball and you guys were the ones who decided that’.
“Obviously it now drives all kinds of emotions in there, nothing more, nothing less. I can’t see that I did anything, had any form of contact with anyone – either a player or a coach. That was it.
“To be honest I can’t really take it seriously [being called the aggressor]. I can’t really take it seriously.”