With the Women’s Super League kicking off today, the debate surrounding the lack of female managers in the league will soon arise.

Emma Hayes will continue to prove that she deserves to be considered one of the best British managers for the work she has done with Chelsea but given that she, along with Reading manager Kelly Chambers, are the only two female managers in the WSL 1, many feel that more could be done to increase the numbers of female coaches at elite level.

One of those coaches who hopes to emulate Hayes and Chambers is Manisha Tailor. Tailor has the background and pedigree to be working alongside the country’s best players. She has her Uefa B licence and plans to get her A badge next year.

Not to mention she is a FA tutor, academy scout for Brentford, centre of excellence manager for Middlesex and all of this without a playing the game at the highest level. Very impressive resume.

What makes this more remarkable is that she is of Indian heritage. That is not to belittle her achievements but it is widely known that football has no real plan in place to increase the numbers of Asian people in the game, be that playing or coaching.

While there has been a noticeable increase to get more women involved in the sport, especially after the success of the England team at the World Cup last year, Tailor has found that the sport still has a long way to go.

As we sit around a table on a chilly evening in London, at an AtTheMatch event — a sport agency that works closely with good causes, the conversation flows freely from her work as a carer and headteacher to wanting to be taken seriously as a coach, not jumping the queue because of her gender or ethnicity.

Listening to her speak so openly and candid about the sport she works in is refreshing. Especially as she is not afraid to call out the Football Association for her being the only woman on her Uefa B coaching course.

“I was part of a Uefa B double course, the double meant that there were about 48 candidates, and I was the only female,” she tells me. “I remember entering that room, looking around and thinking: ‘Where are the other females? Surely there has to be a few more than just me.’

“When it was time for the course to start, I soon realised: ‘Hold on a minute, I am the only female here.’ Working in the men’s game, you develop a certain level of resilience of confidence and I believe that my teaching and headteaching experience developed that.

“So I wasn’t fazed by the fact that there was men in the room but it did make me question that statistic of the underrepresentation of female coaches in the game at an elite level.

“And I thought: ‘Wow this isn’t a joke, this really is true and is there a problem? Why aren’t there any more females on this course?’”

The discussion moves towards any racial or sexual abuse she has received while coaching football and it comes as a shock to me that she has barely had to deal with any sexist remarks.

You only have to take a glance at Twitter or the comments section on any WSL story to see one person making a complete idiot of themselves, using the usual slurs. For Tailor, this hasn’t necessarily been the case.

“There were a couple of comments made with me being questioned as to why I was on the course and for me, the greatest satisfaction was I got 26 out of 28 and was one of the highest passers.

“It was a great feeling to know that you could be just as good as anybody else and being female doesn’t matter, that you want to be recognised as being a good coach and being able to do the job just as well as any other guy can.

“But it certainly did open up my eyes a little bit more as to the higher up you go in the game, particularly with the coaching, the numbers drop with females.

“So I question why is this? Because there are bursary schemes. What we cannot do is say that the FA aren’t doing anything because they have put in programmes, they put in female only courses.

“Now I haven’t been privy to any funding, I paid just over £800 for my Uefa B. I wasn’t able to get on to any female-only programmes, I was on a course as any other person would be.

“But there are these things available for women but apparently the female-only course didn’t fill up so in the end they had to get other candidates on there.

“So I question, is it a case that females aren’t confident? They do need some mentoring to get to that level or is that a case of other factors that females have. Such as home commitments and things? I think we do need to account for that as well, that it is not clear cut.”

After talking about sexist comments, it is only natural that we move on to racism. Again, Tailor is open and honest about the comments she has received but I am surprised when she tells me where they were directed from.

“If I am honest people don’t straight away recognise that I am Asian, probably it’s the blonde hair. I have experienced racism directly but funnily enough it was by an Asian man who called me a choc ice and a coconut.

“Him and a few others from our community have this perception of me being somebody who, in their eyes, is white. Who doesn’t want to support the community so I have experienced racism but from people in my own community.”

Tailor says that no-one else has been racist to her, not directly to her face anyway. But she does acknowledge that it doesn’t mean things have not been said.

I ask her if she believes her being an ethnic minority female coach has hampered her progress on the footballing ladder. In her eyes, it hasn’t.

“For me the barrier has been the access to the next level but it doesn’t stop me from still continuing putting in the work and the graft.

“I just think football is very competitive so female, Asian or not it is competitive anyway. I do believe that if you put in the work and you work hard then at some point that will be fruitful so hopefully for me there will be some experiences coming in where I can potentially work towards my A licence and then break into the WSL or an academy.”

It is only right I ask Tailor about her ambitions in the game. Where does she see herself once she has completed her A licence? Does she get annoyed when she sees ex-players get linked to the top jobs in football with limited coaching experience, sometimes none?

“I don’t invest my time or energy in worrying about what positions I will not get. Instead, my energy is fuelled into how I can continue to progress and grow.

“So the more I feel I continue to focus on that, at some point that will be fruitful. You have ex-players going in to coaching. People question is still very in house? Yes it is.

“It’s about being aware of how football works. But with that awareness I am not somebody who is spiteful. I can only control the controllables, which is what I do. I can control how I perceive things, I can control how I now want to work and plan towards my A licence and if there isn’t a door somewhere else, then you create one.”

As for “my ambition, it would be to be first-team manger in the Premier League or the WSL. For me it is about working at an elite environment.

“However, I have struggled is to gain access so I have my Uefa B which I passed last August, I am an academy manager at a centre of excellence, I am an academy scout for a professional club yet I cannot get access to experience in academies. So for me I question; how do I get access to this experience?”

For ex-players, that experience is easy. Football is still an old boys’ club. Once you are in the inner circle, you can manoeuvre about as freely as you want. This isn’t the case with Tailor. And yet she refuses to play their game.

As the interview winds to a close, I admit that while I have come across her name through social media, I wasn’t aware of her story until now.

Given that she is a Asian coach, and female, I had expected to see her all over the news.

However, she tells me that you won’t see her on the back pages of the papers or the TV because she refuses to dance to their tune.

She wants to be recognised for her ability as a coach and that has to be applauded.

“The reason I don’t get a lot of mainstream press is because I won’t shout about the sexism, the derogatory comments.

“For me it is not about getting that limelight, if someone wants a story it must be about the work.

“The other stuff is a by-product. I still stick by my morals and guns by that. It must be about this person is a bloody good coach. And oh, they happen to be female, Asian or whatever.

“What I would never want is for it to be: ‘Oh Manisha, the Asian woman.’

“I don’t want that to be the first thing that comes out of someone’s mouth.”