Lineker suggested Blues women's coach Emma Hayes should take over at Leicester

Gary Lineker suggested Chelsea Women's coach Emma Hayes to the Leicester board to take over the relegated club at the end of last season.

The former player and long-time Foxes fan maintains strong ties to the club, who fell back down to the Championship for the first time since promotion in 2014.

Leicester sacked Brendan Rodgers after a run of poor results in April, appointing former Aston Villa head coach Dean Smith on an interim basis with the hopes of steering the club to safety.

But Smith was unable to pull off a great escape from the relegation zone, with the Foxes finishing in 18th on just 34 points.

The club later named former Manchester City assistant coach Enzo Maresca ahead of the start of their 2023/24 campaign, but Lineker revealed that he lobbied for one candidate in particular before his appointment.

'It's interesting, I don't know whether I told you before but in the summer, when Leicester were looking for a new manager I actually got in touch with the club with a little idea I had,' Lineker shared on his Rest is Football podcast, 'which was for them to go for Emma Hayes from Chelsea.

'She's great, absolutely legitimate but imagine being the first major football club to have a woman as a coach. It would have brought massive amounts of publicity, particularly at a time when the club had gone down into the Championship.

'You'd have sold all your season tickets. It's not a stunt at all although it is in a way because it would be a massive PR opportunity.

'They did come back to me and say it's probably a step too far at this stage.'

Hayes' towering success with Chelsea - which has seen her win four consecutive Women's Super League titles, and six overall, as well as five FA cups - has seen her linked to a number of moves into coaching men's football.

The 46-year-old has previously brushed aside rumoured links to AFC Wimbledon and Queens Park Rangers, and was named by fellow Blue Joe Cole as the women's coach most likely to lead a top-flight men's team in 2021.

But Hayes is keen not to see her success with Chelsea reduced to a footnote en route to working with a men's side, and has been quick to reiterate her stance that she is interested in only working with elite athletes - of either gender.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour in August, the storied manager stated: 'It's the constant questioning of when am I going into the men's game. The women's game is a high level and I work with world-class athletes.

'I don't mean to talk negatively about any male team or male club but the reality is I already coach elite players and I think it's important to see that in its own right instead of it being a stepping stone to something.'

When linked with AFC Wimbledon in 2021, Hayes claimed that the link was an 'insult' to women's football, and that the club 'couldn't afford her', before later clarifying her comments.

'I sincerely hope AFC Wimbledon find the right candidate for their football club,' Hayes said at the time.

'The whole point about them not being able to afford me is nothing to do with money, but everything to do with the fact that I'm in the best job in the world.

'No amount of money is going to tempt me away from that.