Sonia Bompastor has been confirmed as Chelsea Girls’s new head coach, signing a four-year deal.
The 43-year-old, who replaces Emma Hayes, joins Chelsea from Lyon after three years in cost on the French membership the place she gained seven trophies, together with three French league tiles and the Girls’s Champions League in 2022.
Bompastor gained her third Division 1 Female within the 2023/24 season, however misplaced in Saturday’s Champions League last towards Barcelona.
Chelsea had a shortlist of 4 individuals to fill the pinnacle coach emptiness. It is understood Bompastor was all the time the popular candidate and Lyon have been due compensation, as she had one other 12 months left on her contract.
Chelsea have continued to work on participant recruitment throughout the course of to carry Bompastor in, however their new head coach will now work on transfers.
Bompastor can be accompanied by her assistants Camille Abily and Theo Rivrin. Abily retired in 2018 after a enjoying profession through which she made 323 appearances for Lyon and earned 183 nationwide crew caps for France.
Chelsea basic supervisor Paul Inexperienced stated: “The sporting administrators and I carried out a radical and regarded recruitment course of to establish Emma’s successor.
French soccer journalist Julien Laurens believes Lyon head coach Sonia Bompastor is the perfect option to succeed Emma Hayes as Chelsea supervisor
“Sonia’s imaginative and prescient, teaching philosophy and successful mentality made her the excellent candidate. She is a world-class coach with a confirmed monitor document of success on the largest phases that may immediately command respect from the dressing room.”
Chelsea’s co-sporting administrators Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley added: “Sonia is the perfect candidate to construct on Emma’s legacy and take the crew ahead.
“She brings a wealth of expertise from managing on the highest ranges and successful trophies as a participant and a coach. Her ethos and values align with Chelsea Soccer Membership. We’re all wanting ahead to having her on board.”
Hayes, who has joined the US ladies’s nationwide crew, left Chelsea after securing a document fifth Girls’s Tremendous League title in a row.
It ended a 12-year spell in west London the place she gained 14 main home titles, together with seven WSL titles, 5 FA Cups and two League Cups.
Who’s Sonia Bompastor?
Sonia Bompastor coached Lyon to Champions League success in 2022
There have been two standards that Chelsea have been on the lookout for when appointing a supervisor to fill Hayes’ impossibly giant sneakers.
Any new supervisor should preserve the success of the membership. Chelsea have dominated home soccer in England for years, and have begun to say themselves in Europe too.
A feminine coach has additionally been excessive on their wishlist. In Hayes, Chelsea have had a trailblazer. One of many sport’s chief champions who has been liable for progress and alter – a serious participant in bettering the general well being of the game.
The very fact she has accomplished so from a feminine perspective is equally necessary. Hayes entered the sport at a time when only a few feminine voices have been taken significantly – a niche in skilled feminine head coaches nonetheless exists to today.
And Bompastor matches each – she is one other lady managing at a prime European membership, with a confirmed monitor document of success.
“Sonia is one other huge character,” author and analyst Abdullah Abdullah advised Sky Sports activities. He has written books on each Lyon and Chelsea’s journeys in European competitors.
“She got here right into a Lyon dressing room that wanted steering after they misplaced their method just a little bit below the earlier supervisor. She is a legend of the membership and French soccer so she was immediately revered and lauded internally.
“That gave her a basis with the French gamers. This may be replicated at Chelsea with somebody who’s a legend, however has additionally performed the game-winning Champions League and league titles.”
Learn the characteristic in full right here.
Chelsea announce strategic progress plan
Alongside Bompastor’s arrival, Chelsea additionally introduced a “long-term strategic plan to speed up the expansion of Chelsea Girls”.
With NewCo set to take over the operating of the WSL and Girls’s Championship from the FA subsequent season, Chelsea are utilizing the chance to tackle a brand new construction to sit down alongside the boys’s crew, moderately than beneath. It is going to embrace devoted assets, administration and industrial management centered solely on the ladies’s crew.
Chelsea are additionally on the lookout for new funding for his or her ladies’s facet, with a membership assertion explaining: “Presently, any potential investor right into a WSL crew is required to take a position by a males’s crew.
“Having analysed the market and mentioned with traders, there’s a sturdy want for a chance to take a position solely into the ladies’s sport… BDT & MSD Companions, a world service provider financial institution, has been engaged as monetary advisor on a possible minority funding within the membership, inclusive of evaluating inbound curiosity associated to Chelsea Girls.
“The membership possession group will proceed to be the controlling shareholder of Chelsea and is dedicated to additional substantial investments that may enrich the squad, elevate participant improvement, and guarantee a world-class setting for our athletes and workers.”
