Chelsea’s women (who, from here on, we’ll call simply Chelsea) won the Women’s Super League (WSL) six seasons in a row up to and including 2024/25. In 2018/19, Arsenal won the title, but for three out of four years before that, it was Chelsea who were the best team in the land.
It is fair to say, then, that they have been the dominant force in women’s football in this country for a long time. Emma Hayes was the woman in charge for much of that success, but she left after the 2023/24 campaign to take up the role as head of the USA women’s team.
French boss Sonia Bompastor took over, and it was business as usual as the Blues defended their title. They also won the League Cup and the FA Cup but, as was so often the case under Hayes, came up just short in the Champions League, losing in the semis to Barcelona.
Despite major investment at a number of other clubs in the WSL, many expected Chelsea to win the title once again. However, they look set to finish third, Man City having secured the title with a game to spare. City currently lead Arsenal by four points, with the Blues a further two points back.
Given the Blues went through last season unbeaten and romped to the title by 12 points, it has been a hugely disappointing campaign. They completed a domestic treble last term and won 19 of their 22 games (drawing three), so to win just 14 games this time around is a real shock. And the club are expected to react.
All Games at Stamford Bridge
One big change that we know is going to happen in 2026/27 is that the Blues will, like their male counterparts, play all home games at Stamford Bridge. This was announced towards the end of April and will see the women gain far more support.
Chelsea FC Women will play all Barclays Women’s Super League fixtures at Stamford Bridge from the 2026/27 season.
Never Done.
— Chelsea FC Women (@ChelseaFCW) April 22, 2026
The bridge has a capacity of more than 40,000, while Kingsmeadow, where the women typically play, has just over 2,000 seats and a maximum capacity of fewer than 5,000 people. Chief executive Aki Mandhar said, “We are never done growing and pushing progress to take the game and women’s sports to new heights.”
Quite what impact this will have remains to be seen, because while there may be some very large crowds for certain games, there are likely to be more empty seats than full ones much of the time. Everton’s women moved to Goodison this term, with the men vacating their traditional home to move to Hill Dickinson Stadium, and yet average attendances have been fewer than 6,000. Moreover, results have been poor.
Chelsea and Everton cannot be compared but there can often be a better atmosphere inside a small, tight, packed ground than a much larger, yet sparsely populated one. Moreover, unless a certain threshold is met in terms of numbers, using Stamford Bridge will lose the team money, not generate it.
Bright to Retire
Another big change that has been confirmed for a little while is the retirement of club legend Millie Bright. The brilliant central defender has played her final game for the Blues, calling time on a career that has spanned 12 years and brought 20 trophies.
Bright has played 314 times for the club according to their official stats and also boasts 88 England caps. She captained the Lionesses at the 2023 World Cup, guiding them to the final, and was a key part of the team that won the Euros in 2022.
A leader on and off the pitch, she retired at the end of April, having picked up an ankle injury a couple of months earlier in what turned out to be her last outing for Chelsea. She is set to stay at the club in an ambassadorial role, but the 32-year-old’s presence on the pitch will be missed.
Director of Football
Another issue the club faces is Paul Green’s departure. In February, Green, the head of women’s football, left the Blues after 13 years, and they have clearly suffered. Green even took charge, briefly, as interim manager when Hayes had to have hysterectomy surgery at short notice. Green was also said to have played a large role in recruitment.
His departure was a shock and badly handled, and Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, who are co-sporting directors of the wider Chelsea organisation, have been taking a more active role in the women’s team. Their involvement may be behind Green’s departure, but either way, there are real fears that their lack of experience and knowledge of the women’s game has left the club at a disadvantage.
Green was replaced by Phil Radley, and he has no former experience with women’s football. The Blues may need to bring in some real expertise if they are to fight back against the WSL’s many rising powers.
Kerr and Others Set to Leave
Sam Kerr is a Chelsea legend, and at the start of May, she became the club’s all-time leading scorer in the WSL. However, the Aussie is now 32 years old and is increasingly injury-prone. She is out of contract at the end of June and could be headed to the US after announcing that she will be leaving the Blues.
With Kerr on the way out and Bright also leaving, there is a sense of a changing of the guard, with the spine of the great Hayes teams growing old together. Chelsea have spent big in recent years to try and stay at the top, but replacing true club legends is never easy.
Catarina Macario left the club in March, too, so there are some big holes to fill in the squad and a summer of serious spending is needed. Bunny Shaw would be a marquee signing, with the Jamaican set to win the WSL Golden Boot for the third year in a row. She has scored 115 times in 135 games for City, and her switch from the 2025/26 champions to Chelsea could, by itself, be enough to see Bompastor’s troops return to the WSL summit.
There will be many more comings and goings, and while getting Shaw would be a brilliant coup, it is a very obvious one. What club would not sign the FWA Women’s Footballer of the Year from their main rival if they could? The question is, do Bompastor and whoever else guides recruitment have the nous to pick up the other players needed to not just regain the WSL but also do far better in Europe?