Fired Manager Speaks Out: ‘I Knew it was Wrong’

I was fired: “I knew it was wrong”

Willie Kirk has been sacked as manager of WSL club Leicester following an alleged affair with a player.

Now he speaks out.

– After I confessed, I was treated and I felt like a criminal, he says Daily Mail.

Willie Kirk was fired in March. Leicester wrote on their website that Kirk was “considered to have breached the team’s code of conduct to the extent that the situation is untenable”.

He says a player on the team contacted him to express his feelings. The affair continued for a few months, after which Kirk says he pushed him away.

But when the player, who is still at the club, was injured at the end of last year, they started meeting.

– I agreed to meet on a personal level. She was injured so that didn’t stop me from doing my job because I couldn’t get her out on the team. I tried to justify it to myself but it never made it right. After Christmas we met once a week, I came to her house and the next week she came to mine, he says.

He says he knows the relationship was immoral and says the couple met in secret. When they met, they did it in the dark because they both knew it was wrong.

Various trips to Milan

During the break of the national team, they decided to go on vacation for a few days to Milan.

– We went there on different days, spent two nights in Italy and took different trips back. When we returned I said it has gone too far and we have to stop this until the end of the season when she or I would have to leave the club, he says.

But so Kirk had to leave earlier.

The couple’s relationship was discovered by one person within another person WSLa club that informed Leicester. Kirk was called to a meeting, an investigation was organized, and three weeks later he was fired. Kirk tried to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful.

“I’m not a criminal”

He says he hates himself after that, he hated the club and he hated the relationship at times even though it’s still going on.

– I am not a criminal and I have not committed any crime. I’ve ruined a work environment and that’s a big deal. The club has made mistakes in the past and I came in, turned the season around and kept us in the WSL. Now I have made a mistake and they don’t want anything I do. In that way, I feel let down by the club.