The United States coach enjoyed phenomenal success during a 12-year tenure at Women's Super League club Chelsea but thinks that the owners of football clubs are reluctant to take the step of putting a women in charge of a men's side.

Asked when female managers could take jobs in the men's game, Hayes told BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme: "I think you need to get more owners in to ask them that question, because they're the people you have to ask that question to. I'm not the one in charge of that."

Quizzed on whether owners are "ready" to do so, she added: "Of course they're not, otherwise it would have happened by now.

"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. It just shows you how much work there is to be done."

Hayes has taken the prestigious job of leading the US women's team and says that the new role - which she began in style with a gold medal win at the Paris Olympics - has provided her with fresh "energy" after her lengthy stint at Chelsea.

She told The Guardian newspaper: "I felt so supported right from the off. But I also felt obligated because they’d waited for me. So I wanted to give them the best version of me. I was exhausted and I had to find the energy. I remember Matt Crocker [US Soccer technical director] saying to me: ‘Emma, you won’t realise how much a change will give you energy.’ It did. I was expecting to feel that end-of-season slump, and I didn’t. I’ve got energy again. I’ve got excitement again. I’ve got a chance to build something again."