1. Introduction

Chelsea Women’s Football, officially known as Chelsea Ladies Football Club, is a women’s football club based in Fulham, London, England. The club is part of Chelsea FC, one of the premier clubs in men’s English football and worldwide, and plays in the Women’s Super League, having been awarded a license for the new top tier of women’s football in England in 2010 when the proposed league was founded. The WSL replaced the Women’s Premier League as the top division in the English women’s game, and

live matches began broadcasting in 2011. Chelsea Ladies FC was officially founded in 1992, with a reserve team and a youth team joining the FA Women’s Premier League from 1995. In 2004, the club’s first team, then known as Chelsea LFC, began dominating the Women’s Premier League WSL, England’s top tier; they won four consecutive titles between 2016 and 2020.

Chelsea has taken part in the UEFA Women’s Champions League but has never progressed further than the semi-finals. The biggest achievement of Chelsea Women’s Football is reaching the Champions League final in 2020. However, Barcelona won the final 4–0. Since 2018, the club has been considered one of the best teams in Europe, along with Arsenal Women’s Football and Manchester City Women’s FC. Key signings such as Scandinavian duo, Ann-Katrin Berger, Guro Reiten, and new manager Emma Hayes have amplified their squad, and Chelsea is among the favourites to win this year’s UEFA Women’s Champions League.

The club’s foundation came with the creation of a women’s team for Chelsea FC in 1992. Chelsea played their first game against the Prisons side, being a well-supported team from the start. The club has had varying degrees of success throughout its history, being most successful in the FA Women’s Premier League between 1992 and 2011. In 2004, Chelsea became the first Championship club to achieve an FA Women’s Premier League license, and in 2006, a new commercial arm, Chelsea FC Women’s Football, was founded. Chelsea Ladies Football Club was founded in late 2010 to replace Gale, and on 29 June 2011, the club was accepted into the FA Women’s Super League.

2. History of Chelsea Women’s Football

In 2009, amidst a backdrop of expanding attention to women’s football at the national team level and unrest in the top tier of women’s football, the FA announced the formation of the Women’s Super League, a key part of the FA’s strategy to take the League ‘to the next level’. Initially, the WSL was to be an eight-team league that would operate outside of the existing pyramid. The WSL’s formation was welcomed, and many hoped it would help take women’s football forward in England after stagnation following the success of the hosting of the UEFA Women’s Euros in 2005. However, some felt that such a steep, rash move so soon after this unrest had the potential to fail, to ‘patronisingly look like a bunch of guys with a lot of money throwing it without knowing how football works’. This questioning of motives naturally led to worries about the League’s sustainability, expertise, and governance. Regardless, these concerns and questions were largely absent in the deep, detailed debates that took place amongst the elite players immediately prior to and during the WSL’s formation (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018). Quickly after its formation, it became clear that the WSL was treated as a product to be marketed, not a league by which clubs could compete on the field. Leagues and competitions tend to be the result of clubs coming together to pool their resources and allowing these clubs to compete on the field. Passion about the sport can transcend these constraints. The key idea with the WSL was that women’s football was to be marketed and distributed according to FA desires, and clubs would fit into this narrative and exploit it, or seek alternative solutions. The FA conceived of, planned, and rolled out a league with little input from clubs, then handed it to clubs and said ‘you own it, now. Good luck!!’. The clubs’ pre-WSL development pathways were discarded without consultation with the clubs leading these efforts, leading to disillusionment and distrust amongst the clubs.

2.1. Formation and Early Years

In 2008, there was a major structural re-organisation of women’s football along similar lines to men’s football, with the inception of the Women’s Super League (WSL). This was widely hailed as a ‘landmark moment’ in the continuing battle against the decades of neglect faced by women’s football by the Football Association (FA) (Woodhouse et al., 2019). As an indication of how far the women’s game is from being viewed as equal to men’s football, a central complaint about the WSL has been that it is merely a shadows league. The desire for autonomy and independence from men’s clubs remains. It is a concept with deep-seated ideological underpinnings, centering on the principles of ‘equality’, ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’. As observance of how stakeholders have tried to construct support for the development of the league and how they have failed. On reflection, it is now clear why major gender issues have so far failed to materialise.

In terms of challenges, there is a near vacuum of critical literature examining the contexts in which the WSL and franchise models have occurred. Against this backdrop, the FA’s stated ambitions for the WSL were surely interpreted as a clear attempt to impose an ideology of competitiveness on the women’s game. In the summer of 2010, at the start of the second season, millionaire investor David Gold joined WSL club Birmingham City. The aim of this analysis is to go beyond an early one-off piece examining WSL media coverage or attendance levels to provide an in-depth study into the attempts and failures of the FA to gain support for the WSL. Given the secretive nature in which the FA has operated, a preliminary steep climb into observing the unfolding events was vital before that support became visible to ascertain whether this was universal or piecemeal.

2.2. Key Milestones

The success of the women’s football team in the FAWSL and the incapacity of the Chelsea’s men’s team in winning a trophy since 2013 are analysed to identify whether gender of the clubs’ ownership affects sporting performance. The analysis reveals that the gender of the owners does not exclusively affect sporting performance. Other historic clubs including Tottenham and Man United have not been able to win the FAWSL. Furthermore one of the historic ‘big six’ men’s clubs, Arsenal, was unable to compete with the likes of new club ownership in Chelsea’s men’s team and other UEFA clubs to win the Champions League over the past eight years. However the sample size is considerably small, and although UEFA clubs create wealth disparities within the league, the closer competition in the FAWSL created by the further investment by teams is conjectured to yield fluctuations in success.

Barriers including pre-conditions to investment necessary to reach the men’s club stature, the structures of ownership with costs involved and patriarchy within the institution are discussed to explore any implications there might be on the women’s clubs current valuation and acknowledgement. There is speculation that unless pre-conditions of profit and stature to invest in could be reached successfully, the fortunes of the clubs would never be in the competitive text as those of the men’s clubs. There are notions that speculation of investment should be seen as business ventures rather than phenomena of goodwill and benevolence. But the hope that with changes in ownership, changes in success and stature will arguably follow.

Following the Mercedes-Benz Arena, the redesigned venue of the USWNT friendly against Brazil is reared as a potential valiant development. Dallas, the target of Christine Sinclair’s wrath and considerable video evidence in malfeasance and misconduct against Black women was condemned by Women’s Football. Speculation on the social, economic and cultural implications of the ticket sales in response to the high-profile alleged negligence. However, a sizeable and eclectic audience captured by the entry of new ownerships and new brands into this very broadcastable league could provide football societies around the world who want to reap the benefits of hosting women’s football a model for future success (Woodhouse et al., 2019).

3. Club Structure and Management

The Club Structure in the Chelsea Women’s Football Club is designed to match a professional club level and ensure compliance with the FA Women’s Super League and UEFA Club Licenses. The football club makes a commitment to manage the club football operations in accordance with the respective laws, specific regulations, and guidance of competitions. The club structure itself is a hierarchy starting with Chelsea Football Club PLC, where the highest decision-making body is the PLC Board (Woodhouse et al., 2019). The Chelsea Football Club’s Board is also the ultimate controlling party.

As the owners of the club within the group, one of the members is consummated through the trust arrangement of the club’s shareholding. While the membership of the PLC Board is predominantly male, the club endeavors to achieve an appropriate level of gender balance. This corporate governance structure is in place to serve the respective organizations better, and it is designed to meet recommendations made by the Financial Reporting Council. Regular reviews and discussions of the role of the PLC Board and the need for any changes to the Constitution of the Club are conducted to ensure the directors retain the credibility and integrity necessary to lead the club effectively. Such independence will facilitate a robust challenge to the club’s operational and strategic plans.

Technically Chelsea Holdings Limited is the parent company of the Chelsea Group. The owner is based in Russia. The owner has a clear long-term strategy to ensure the football club is managed for success on and off the pitch and a proven track record of financial backing for the club across a broad spectrum of investment ranging from heavy capital investment in stadium and training ground infrastructure to the buying of world-class players. There is a clear delegation of authority from the ultimate owner to the Board of Directors of Chelsea Holdings who meet regularly and take the key strategic decisions pertaining to the football club.

3.1. Ownership and Governance

In April 2013, the English Football Association (FA) announced the formation of the Women’s Super League (WSL), a semi-professional league designed to raise the profile of the women’s football in England. A total of thirteen clubs (ten in WSL1 and three in WSL2) set out to engage more effectively with women’s football and provide it with the infrastructure it deserved. Reflecting on mainstream football and the growing accessibility of football-in-general to women, the FA theorised that 200,000 women had league visibility or engagement, and 160,000 currently played football in England. FA invested in club development and the role of players as representatives of the women’s game (Woodhouse et al., 2019). In light of these statistics and assumptions, plans for the future were drawn up to ensure that the broad social network of women’s football grew hand-in-hand with the developing elite game. Most importantly, attempts to differentiate the WSL from the old structure were also necessary to signal intent for a new future. On the one hand, a known Premier League model of “clubs” with a short list of criteria was presented. On the other, decisions made by the validated clubs resulted in a major restructuring of governance, profile and position. It was with the disbanding of the FA Women’s Premier League and the FA Women’s Premier League Cup, those clubs which had formerly comprised the top-tier division of women’s football in England, that the initial bonds to the framework of the game were broken. Crucially, a series of speculative questions must be taken on board: was this change inevitable? Would the rationale behind the formation of the WSL have been different had it been formulated by insiders who had experiential knowledge of the women’s club game? What was known about the pre-WSL elite club game? What did a “clean break from the past” mean? The claim underpinning this article is that the FA’s rationale for the inception of the WSL, and the decisions taken, resulted in a mode of governance and position in a broader cultural field which is not necessarily conducive to its future success. Innovation in the understanding of women’s football, and the configurations drawn up to govern it, would evidence that the FA found itself in a far more difficult position than it may have realised. In light of early lessons, drawing on expert knowledge and insights from the existing cultural field is essential if the WSL is to develop a distinctive identity, raise the profile of women’s football in England, and realise the manifold benefits that derive from successfully engaging with women’s football and its surrounding community.

3.2. Coaching Staff

The Chelsea Women’s team has undergone some dramatic changes in recent years. The club parted ways with coach Emma Hayes in the summer of 2022 after a traditional six-year spell at the club, during which the team had won every possible piece of hardware. The club hired well-known former Barcelona and France coach Emmanuel Piqué at the start of the season. His tenure, however, ended after only eight months and many disappointing performances (in the league, Chelsea is currently in 5th position and likely to miss its first WSL Champions qualification in eight seasons). Considered the favorite for the position given her experience in the FAWSL with Manchester City, but also with Paris FC in the D1 Arkema, where she won the league, as well as the European Women’s Champions Cup with France, former Chelsea and England midfielder and current national team assistant coach Nick Cushing took the position at the end of March 2023. The coaching staff surrounding Cushing is composed of Justin Dedeaux and Melanie Vann (assistant coaches) and Ryan Dodd (goalkeeper coach). Justin Dedeaux is another of Cushing’s former Manchester City assistants. He has been in England for 14 years, originally moving there from the United States to coach youth players at the famed Blackburn Rovers academy. He then served as an academy coach at Manchester City until being promoted to first team level in 2016, where he has primarily worked with players in the forward and attacking positions. Melanie Vann is another addition. The former Olympic bronze-medal-winning midfielder in the US Women’s National Football League recently obtained her coaching badges and has worked with training camps at the national team level in the US and at youth academies in California. Ryan Dodd is a highly regarded goalkeeping coach who also previously worked for Michigan State University in the NCAA (Woodhouse et al., 2019).

4. Player Development and Recruitment

Chelsea switched their player recruitment policy in 2015 to recruit from national geographical areas known for producing elite players (Drury et al., 2022). Tracking feedback via a Scoutstore, Chelsea sought wider acceptance through more defined recruitment rules. Chelsea expanded its recruitment network to England, after extending its scouting operations in the UK outside London. The club’s elite centre of excellence was now expanding its geographically centred scouting strategy outside the previously restricted areas of London, parts of Surrey, and Kent to the whole of England. In December 2019, Chelsea’s women’s team became the first to introduce club enforced football ID cards and became one of the first elite women’s programmes to provide scouting feedback via a digital management system. These scouting tools were deployed to attempt to widen the scouting scope of Chelsea’s competition and acceptance outside its previous existing range of geographical areas, increasing the quality of football and football education at all levels of play, and thereby contribute to the wider development of British Football.

The ingenuity of Chelsea’s strategy lies not in transferring a scouting practice proven successful elsewhere, but in recruiting personnel capable of vibrant growth. In their early years, Chelsea appears to have enjoyed stability with respected coaching staff, but as championships & cups were shelved on adjacent shelves, Simmons’ recruitment strategy and talent pool dried up. Lyons and McCarter therefore left for alternate avenues, but in turn the players streamed out too. When Webb’s player production policy at left back was reported in April 2021, that was arguably Chelsea’s zenith as a side known for a certain style. Webb’s untimely departure to Spain heralded the club’s current plight. Anther long-term coaching appointment may be needed to nurse the 5 contracted players left behind through the uncertainty of a new regime, adjusting tactics to suit their skills, style of management, relations to upper management and methods of team intent and motivation. Alternatively, a complete change in playing philosophy and all personnel on and off the pitch may be warranted.

4.1. Youth Academy

Chelsea doubled the number of girls in their youth teams from 120 to 240 between 2000 and 2015. The Blues football academy was chosen as the new Premier League Academy from 2021 onwards, with new dedicated facilities situated at Kingsmeadow with three pitches and a clubhouse. Goals for the new youth academy include enhancing player quality for the first team, education and life skill development, and delivering top LTPD programmes for girls at all levels in the club’s regional area. The academy will aim to provide a pipeline of talent for the first team through the development of players who possess the ‘Chelsea DNA’ (Bullough & Coleman, 2019). Chelsea Women’s Football Club (CFCW) entirely belongs to Chelsea Football Club, as the club’s Women’s team has been wholly owned and operated by Men’s team owner and Chair, Roman Abramovich’s, Chelsea Football Club since 2004. Chelsea’s first owned club aside from men’s, Chelsea Ladies FC formed within the club’s community arm of the Chelsea Foundation, who oversaw women’s football similar to many other high-profile men’s clubs. Chelsea FC began their ‘Operation: Women’ project to match counterpart clubs in service offerings for women in March 2006, eventually culminating in the restructuring of Chelsea Ladies from being an independent club to an owned entity by Chelsea FC in March 2010. The restructure helped Chelsea Ladies significantly grow their professional football operation, recruiting elite-level players and now boasting a full-time squad, coaching and medical staff. (Drury et al., 2022).

4.2. Scouting and Recruitment Strategies

The recruitment and identification strategies of scouts tend to vary despite the context of the TI focus. Scouts typically engage in a streamlined process of identifying players. This process consists of accumulating information on potential players, watching them in full-game/competitive situations, evaluating the player’s ability relative to their peers, and compiling this information to pass on to the club’s TI staff. To increase the posterior probability that a player is high-quality, scouts can employ supplementary strategies, resources, or conduits during any of the aforementioned stages of the typical TI scouting process. These activities form a ‘second tier’ of TI strategies used by scouts who operate in contexts with the strongest TI focus. Different scouts have differing approaches to discovering players. Speculation through ballpark guesses surrounding match outcomes, results, and the performance of players not already scouted forms a process for player acquisition that is familiar to scouts across contexts. The response of speculation-backfilling suggests that speculation is both an effective and utilized TI strategy. Following speculation-backfilling, scouts seeking a temporary fix will typically furnish an on- or off-field definition of talent to supplement backfilling. This combination of speculation and furnishing is scalable such that greater effort in either area results in a superior net output, indicating that scouts in contexts with a weaker TI focus largely Toe-dip until the EF blacks-market approaches comparative information equilibrium. Together with the distribution of player ability and TI focus it influences which scouts at which clubs utilize which TI strategies, and hence why those strategies, while similar, differ in execution and success rates. The success of strategies can vary with their context. Heavy surveillance of a fledgling market resulted in a statistics-heavy TI strategy due to a lopsided knowledge distribution that made suspects exceptionally costly. Conversely, as knowledge and expertise within the TI circle matured over time, a narrower focus on ‘good buys’ emerged, indicating that TI strategies and their success rates can evolve. That scout-acquisition and specification-defining TI strategies were ingrained in even new scouts indicates that the extreme success of these strategies was well-known, and still being thought about or proven right.

5. Tactical Approach

Tactically, Chelsea Women have channeled their play through building up phases. The inverse relationship found indicates that with a lower build-up approach, the probability of scoring and xG decrease. Therefore, for a greater probability of scoring, it would be convenient for teams to build through short passes and restart playing after interceptions, minimizing long passes and rapid losses. This corresponds to the possession style of play which has been found to be positively associated with the probability of winning in men’s football at the international level. Clearly, the importance of complying with a generation of short passes without losing the ball in order to have a greater xG probability is aligned with Chelsea Women’s playing style in which short passes were primarily executed during build-up play.

The initial objective of this research was to know the tactical indicators of teams who presented the best results after analyzing the last two seasons of the women’s FA WSL, focusing on Chelsea FC. For this team, it has been researched whether there are significant tactical indicators of scoring, with the aim of providing insight into the play of a successful team (Maneiro et al., 2021). These associations with scoring through a logistic regression model were analyzed, along with discriminate analyses, highlighting the amount of tactical indicators for which Chelsea Women significantly differed from the rest of the teams. Chelsea Women, in comparison to the rest of the teams, showed the highest tendency to structure the attack through build-up phase tactical situations, preserve possession time with short passes, and generate shot attempts and xG through a greater use of progression towards the center, escalating set plays, and passes inside the penalty area along with post-shoot deuces. Through style of play and phase of play indicators, the tactical strongholds of Chelsea Women are described.

This research highlights the novelty and significance of this study, which sheds light on the tactical approach in football (Plakias et al., 2024). In the field of tactical analysis in football, the usage of a comprehensive set of tactical indicators, covering both the development and build-up phases, that can be studied in a simulated fashion is both insightful and pragmatic. The framework provided is innovative and could be paramount for understanding football from a tactical perspective, be it for pre-planning matches or adjusting in-game tactics and strategy, and ultimately support a team’s success probability.

5.1. Formation and Style of Play

Starting with an established 4-3-3 formation, Chelsea often adjusted to a 3-4-3 or 4-2-3-1 in possession. Build-up looks varied; often starting with the goalkeeper, or from a back three, with one wing-back dropping deeper to create time and space. A vertical progression came by exploiting passing lanes into the opposition half. Here, a series of fluid movements, overloads and rotations would attempt to lure the opposition out of shape; the offense focused more on ball circulation and penetration rather than occupancy of zones, with off-the-ball runs playing a pivotal role. A final third held many structures; involving movements between the lines into spaces, and combination play with the more advanced players (Maneiro et al., 2021).

The use of external players initially sought to exploit these wide spaces; aiming to progress quickly and avoid the press or, at the very least, draw defenders out of the way for a cut back into a more central area. Once settled, a chain of triangles were formed as back-and-forth passes switched heavy pressing and created time and space for openings into the box. In defence Chelsea used a basic double block; however, the second block often pushed up into the midfield third to apply pressure as a trio. Here, pressure from the side opposite to the ball became highly aggressive, preventing the opponents from settling into possession. A remodelling of the double block would see it shift closer together; and when in possession Chelsea became a diamond looking to stop progressed passes as a collective unit.

5.2. Key Tactical Innovations

Novel approaches to analysing, investigating and measuring football performance are required. This research highlights the novelty and significance of examining football through a tactical lens and sets a precedent for future studies. A comprehensive framework is introduced that could revolutionise tactical planning and in-game strategy, ultimately enhancing a team’s likelihood of success. Despite the plethora of literature published in relation to performance analysis in football, the literature has neglected the tactical approach. The tactical approach to analyze and measure build-up play is novel for football in research and current practice, yet the strategic role of this type of play in match outcomes is still unexplored. Empirical studies converge on the assertion that possession-style play correlates positively with the probability of winning. Winning teams maintain higher percentages of ball possession and successfully complete a greater number of passes, which creates more goal-scoring opportunities. Linking possession with success, the possession style of play is characterized by controlled ball circulation, mainly through lateral passes across the pitch, and strategic passing sequences with a high possibility of delivering the ball to the final third (Plakias et al., 2024). This style of play enables teams to exploit weaknesses in their opponent’s formation, while also applying their own strengths to the fullest.

Not surprisingly, extensive literature has examined the possession–success relationship. The overall empirical evidence points to the direct impact of ball possession and short passes on the likelihood of achieving victory. A comprehensive study in elite football leagues found that a 1% increase in possession is associated with a 0.127 local goals increase. Similar temporal granularity is preserved by pass length. Notably, longer passes are beneficial for the likelihood of a loss, while shorter passes correlate positively with the likelihood of victory. Recently expanded the temporal granularity to 92 macroscalar games and highlighted the necessity for caution when approaching contextually-updated tactical insights. All teams possess unique playing styles with both serving effective purposes. A balanced approach to possession maintenance and direct play, as well as positional play, is observed in different contexts. The contextual application of ball possession and passing accuracy is crucial.

6. Major Achievements

Chelsea FC Women (also called Chelsea Ladies FC) is a semi-professional women’s football club based in Fulham, England, established in 1992. The team has competed for Chelsea FC in the FA Women’s Super League since it turned into a fully professional club in 2015. Chelsea Ladies FC was founded in 1992 and joined the FA Women’s Premier League in 1993 as a founding member. The team won its first silverware in 2000 with the FA Women’s Premier League Cup and first entered the FA Women’s Premier League National Division in 2001 (Drury et al., 2022). Chelsea Ladies FC won the FA Women’s Premier League in 2015 and the FA Women’s Super League in 2017 while playing in the latter’s inaugural season. Chelsea FC took over the running of the team in September 2018 and converted it into a fully professional club.

The Women’s Football Association Cup (“WFA Cup”) is the oldest women’s football tournament in England. It was founded in 1970 and was renamed the Women’s FA Cup (“FA Cup”) in 1993 after the formation of the governing Football Association. Chelsea Ladies played in the first FA Cup in 1970, beating Edgware Town 5–0 in the first round, but lost in the final 4–1 to Southampton Women’s. In October 1988, the team also lost in the final, again 4–1 to Doncaster Belles. Chelsea won the FA Women’s Premier League Cup in 2000 and reached the finals in 2002, 2006, and 2007 before finally achieving victory in 2012, becoming the first team outside the top division to win it.

Chelsea FC won the FA Women’s Superbowl with a 3–1 victory against the previously unbeaten Arsenal Ladies. Chelsea Ladies FC won the FA Women’s Premier League Southern Division in 2014, securing promotion back to the highest tier of women’s football in England. Chelsea FC took charge of the running of the team at the start of the 2018–19 season and converted it to a fully professional club. Chelsea FC Women have won 8 titles, notably 3 FA Women’s Super League titles in 2016–17, 2017-18, and 2020–21, the first after the 2nd Women’s Football Association Premier League Football in the 2014-15 season.

6.1. Domestic Success

The Thoroughbreds finished the season level on 79 points with Manchester City, and one goal heavier on goal difference. The crucial weekend of 7-8 May started with a day at the office for Chelsea, away at Reading, where the Blues took a 3-0 lead in just seven minutes. Jessie Fleming opened the scoring from a pass, Sam Kerr added a second, and Lauren James of a deep cross from Jess Carter. By the end of the first-half, it was 4-1 thanks to Ann Midwinter’s audacious lobbed goal before Guro Reiten rounded it off with a remarkable moment of individual brilliance. City, meanwhile, suffered a shock defeat at home to Manchester United, and suddenly the title was back at Kingsmeadow the following week against the same opponent. United, now sitting in third place and pushing for the Champions League qualification, had plenty of motivation going into the match.

Every player believed they would win, including Hayes, but Chelsea began nervously, and Hayley Ladd scored for the visitors in the first 20 minutes. Chelsea had a moment when Ann-Katrin Berger slipped a goal kick into Jessie Fleming’s foot, with the ball ricocheting off a defender’s foot and deflecting into the net for 2-0 City. United could hardly miss with all that luck and despair, and in an instant, Chelsea were 3-0 down. However, a sense of calm finally came over Hayes’ side and although wise heads such as Guro Reiten and Millie Bright were staying calm, everything finally clicked into motion around the pitch. The Blues attacked in waves, playing vertical balls over the top, and drawing in defenders to free up space for others to attack. Chelsea rarely wavered in their maximum aggression and intensity, and Sam Kerr fired home just before half-time, and the momentum entirely shifted. On the other end of the half, a moment of genius from Lauren James enabled Guro Reiten to score the equalizer and return the game to 3-3.

A moment of magic from Sam Kerr earned the Blues the crucial victory. A long ball over the top from Millie Bright bounced towards the area, before it was flicked on ahead of Guro Reiten by Reiten and chipped expertly over the opposing goalkeeper onto the goal-line. Chelsea held on to their one-point advantage for the final two games against Liverpool and Aston Villa, both later confirmed as 1-0 wins, en route to Chelsea becoming back-to-back champions for the second time in club history.

6.2. European Competitions

The Women’s UEFA Champions League, which began as the UEFA Women’s Cup in 2001-02, is an annual league competition for Europe’s top clubs. The competition was renamed and reformatted in 2010-11 and has run in a group stage format since 2017-18. This season, 75 clubs from 49 different associations entered. As one of the highest-ranked national leagues, Chelsea automatically qualified for the group stage draw, held on 2 October 2023, alongside 15 other clubs, including European champions FC Barcelona, last season’s runners-up VfL Wolfsburg, and six-time champions Olympique Lyonnais.

Chelsea were drawn in Group D with FC Barcelona, FC Bayern Munich, and FC Eindhoven. Drawn against the two highest-ranked clubs, the Blues were given the toughest group in the competition. Each club will play the other sides home and away as they look to finish in the top two spots and progress to the quarterfinals. Chelsea were in action on the opening night of the competition, taking on FC Eindhoven in a 15:00 kick-off at Kingsmeadow on the 18 October 2023. This was followed by a trip to take on Barcelona at the Estadi Lluis Companys, home of RCD Espanyol, on the 30 October before returning to face Bayern Munich at home on 8 November.

Chelsea played against Bayern Munich in the first European match in front of a sold-out Stamford Bridge on 15 November. The return fixture was played in Germany on 26 November before hosting FC Eindhoven in a double-header. The first match in 2024 was the return fixture against FC Barcelona on 20 February. 2024 marked Chelsea’s 17th full season in European football and their 11th in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, looking to go one step further in a tournament that they have reached the semifinals and final in previous seasons.

European matches are typically played on a Wednesday night on a midweek later in the season, which avoids fan clashes with France and Germany for Chelsea, helping the club maximise ticket sales and, in turn, revenue. As Chelsea have progressed to the knockout stages of the competition over the last few seasons, FA Cup third-round weekend in January, domestic league matches, and international windows have clashed, directly affecting fan travel and affecting the team’s performance on matchday, when players may not be available and not being able to impact the match due to being away on national team duty (Stephens et al., 2018).

7. Rivalries and Key Matches

In 2018 and 2019, a fierce rivalry emerged on London’s west side. Chelsea and Arsenal, both with well-established and accomplished squads, clashed in successive FA Women’s League Cups and Community Shields, with the Gunners holding the upper hand in the League Cup in 2018 and the Community Shield a year later. However, it was Emma Hayes’ Chelsea who charged ahead after an eventful winter break, winning the 2020 FA Women’s Super League by the narrowest of margins in an obsessive league campaign, before doubling the tally in 2021 with that first elusive Women’s FA Cup Trophy, thereby growing the disdain for the opposite side of the town across the years. In March 2020, Hayes’ Chelsea marched into Meadow Park, ultimately winning 3-0 with Sam Kerr scoring a first-time overhead kick from distance in what would go on to be the next internet sensation. Unfortunately for the Gunners, possession would see them outshot 23-3, with a mere single shot on target in what was a brutal defeat. The once 25-point deficit across the match day was abated in November 2018, but through that lively March afternoon, Chelsea once again rediscovered their advantage on the scoresheet.

Fueled by the match day bottle of Merlot and played at a four-goal deficit, a historic atmosphere surrounded the women’s side and the ever-impassionate response saw faithfuls flock towards north London; a dull October evening would be far from the backdrop with 5,500 folks in attendance. Alas for the fans, though, the Ivorian spirit waxed strong as an inspired Fran Kirby opened the scoring early on, netting her first league goal of the season against the side that sparked a fiery summer transfer window. For all the talk of nerves for the Blues, there was no sense of such as Hayes’ side began picking apart an Arsenal side set out to dominate possession and push Chelsea back. This was a fixture that set the tone for the season ahead; Freeze the frame to before that electric second goal. Hayes in jubilance and the otherwise unshakeable Powell nervy; it was afresh for both dugouts – this being the initial tactical struggle against a fellow top-four side that each would turn to replicate. The hosts would look to stretch Chelsea high with dangerous overlaps down the left whilst les Blues receded as much as possible. Hayes mastered that cat and mouse, with immediate rewards as Chelsea not only nullified the scores but also saw her side turn the tide.

7.1. London Derbies

Despite the historical dominance of the London club, their recent losses have reignited an intense rivalry. This rendition has the potential to unearth historical grievances that may have been buried during those years. Furthermore, the rivalry has been further fueled by both clubs capturing the pair of heavyweight derbies between the summer of 2022 and the autumn of 2022. In her first-ever full summer transfer window, Hayes’s progress at Chelsea stalled somewhat as she oversaw a number of big-money departures from the club alongside pipedream arrivals that the interconnected European leagues had long been duly warned about. As always, though, Hayes remained unfazed. An astonishing drilled pass to a limping Sam Kerr the moment before the half-time whistle marked a turning point in Chelsea’s WSL and Champions League fortunes.

That multimillion-pound chaos and a cavalcade of troubles fell almost exclusively on Chelsea’s bench and the squad — two balls in off the back post helped settle the ratings avatar spend at the low halo in selling passengers on further Europe year — ushered in an avalanche of ex-girlfriends, fiances, and wives into club journalistic circles. In the aftermath of the December match in London, a spree took a scientific approach in recruiting ex-players.

Of Chelsea’s fourteen fixtures in the second half of the 2021–22 season, twelve were on the road. The lay-off between WSL matches helped players recover from injuries and served to prepare a few right-side matches abroad that had been integrated into the schedule. Most importantly, it helped Hayes reset things at Chelsea. After events set things into motion at Chelsea, a plethora of experiences came into recruitment, introduction, and wildest dreams at ticket-winning clubs. The magnitude of the project at terminal rush flipside outside of get-togethers made acceptance in hindsight.

7.2. Notable Matches in History

Chelsea Women Football Club is one of the teams that have contributed to the success of the English women’s football league. The assertion of a collective feminine voice was implicit in the choice of the teams’ nickname as “The Blues”, which refers to the club colors as well as slang for the kicking, swearing men of the Mossport area. Chelsea’s comparative obscurity before 1991 means that their distinctive culture is only beginning to emerge; nonetheless, it is already possible to identify some key attributes that combine to form their culture. One of the more humorous aspects is the Northampton hooligan style either taken on or genuinely adopted by a section of their fans, and which has been tolerated surprisingly. Chelsea Women Football Club have been treated deferentially in the media coverage afforded their more famous and older male counterparts (Williams, 2019).

Chelsea women’s football fame seemed to rise and fall at the same dizzy speed as the partisan, if at times violent, following that adhered to it. During the autumn of 1929, Chelsea became booking Hall celebrities, and with the attendance of 53,000 at the final cup tie at Stamford Bridge, the club seemed set for stardom. Milder weather and the closing of the sports fields accentuated a fall-off in support, and within a year the club, haunted by the specters of non-closure fans, hampers full of odd-sized jerseys, and empty stands in the rain, was closed down. Chelsea rarities sell as quickly and easily as current memorabilia, and are passionately sought after by collectors, especially by Chelsea male football fanatics. Only in the 1970s did the club briefly revive, but this time it struggled to fill a much reduced fixture calendar and was closed down again.

Since the late 1980s, Chelsea women’s football has been remarkably successful in the recruitment and training of its female players. At the moment the club has 191 registered players in the various age and development teams that play under the Chelsea FA banner. Formed in July 1995, the Under 12 matches were first organized in the autumn of 1996, and the excitement of both players and parents was palpable. Yet another first was achieved when, for the second half of the 1997 season, Chelsea Women Football Club U10 joined a Davis Cup inspired “mini-league” of two U12 teams, Chelsea proving either blessedly out of the pan or a good deal wiser than men.

8. Impact on Women’s Football

Chelsea FC Women have significantly raised the profile of women’s football in the UK; they’re a flagship women’s team in a women’s game that’s rapidly becoming more mainstream, raising to the challenge of an increasingly lively WSL and competing with some of the most iconic teams on the continent in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Here, the importance of the team in this modern context is considered, as well as the work that can still be done to further boost visibility, attendance and investment.

As flagship women’s club teams in their respective leagues, Chelsea and Arsenal were arguably England’s two biggest women’s teams pre-2020. After the 2022 Euros, they have become further entrenched as both the two biggest teams in London and the biggest teams in the Women’s Super League (WSL) going forward. As teams that have had consistent on-pitch success, they have been able to seize opportunities for visibility. Chelsea’s success in the latter two years of Hayes’ tenure, coinciding with the decision to move to the Cobham training ground, started the establishment of a new visual vernacular for the team (Drury et al., 2022). This coming secularisation of women’s football further increases the need for media coverage and the development of a narrative such that women’s football can be normalised within the English football landscape.

A perennial question in women’s football is how to shift audience attitudes towards more positive and supportive standpoints. The hope is that as support for the team grows organically, there will be a natural shift in audience attitudes towards more mature ones, whereby support is allocated based on team loyalty rather than matchday attendance genders. Nonetheless, as England’s most high-profile women’s team, Chelsea can still help accelerate the growth of the women’s game more generally. In this regard, there is a question of how to better reach audiences that might not currently consider watching or supporting women’s football. Chelsea have started to capitalise on the growth of TikTok as a platform and could further widen and diversify the audience through increased presence on platforms such as Twitch and the incorporation of longer-form content on platforms such as YouTube.

8.1. Promotion of Women’s Sport

Analyses apply to the FA Women’s Super League (WSL) and marketing strategies undertaken by Chelsea Football Club women’s team, focused on creating an impactful experience on and off the pitch on the maiden season and beyond. The importance of creating a narrative for teams and league, in forming a standpoint and social media presence in educating the audience and building long-term loyalty, and the co-creation of experience with fans, primarily through shout-outs on social media and the organisation of memorable experiences, emerges as key for fan recruitment, engagement and retention. Findings suggest that while the marketing strategies successfully impacted individual clubs, a lack of adherence to the league’s vision hinders broader developments on the social media front. Magic can put a club on the map, but sustainable growth ultimately needs meticulous planning and careful execution, particularly with regards to content generation (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018).

The FA announced plans to launch the FA Women’s Super League in March 2010, which would see the existing FA Women’s Premier League transformed into a new elite women’s league beginning in April 2011. Explaining the move, the Football Association’s Chairman noted that ‘the new league is being launched to provide a new platform for women’s football in England that will boast a better standard of football and better facilities for spectators’ and would ‘give fans a perception of both an elite league and the female game more generally. It will have its own branding, a proper set of objectives and a much clearer strategy for marketing and development’. As a response to this announcement, after first containing fears that any disadvantages outside of the Women’s Premier League would be structural, the Women’s Super League (WSL) clubs embraced it, wholeheartedly.

8.2. Influence on Grassroots Football

The Women’s Super League, now rebranded as the Barclays Women’s Super League (BWSL), launched in March 2011 with a clear vision to ‘take women’s football to the top.’ On 23 February 2017, the FA announced that the league would be fully professional from the start of the 2018/19 season (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018). This announcement was made in conjunction with the awarding of licences to the new league and its clubs. Seven licensing criteria were outlined which, if unfulfilled, would result in the automatic relegation of clubs. The emphasis on full-time, full-cost professionalism and rapid growth fuels uncertainty about the future of many clubs predicated on quickly disbursed cultural values of heighted frenzy (i.e. success is quantified in terms of attendance, sponsorship and media exposure) and suggests that the FA’s expansion policy is fundamentally misguided (Woodhouse et al., 2019). In light of continued media coverage of the FA Women’s Super League (WSL) and attendant concerns about its expansion, key footballing stakeholders across channels have been questioned regarding the direction of the women’s game since 2015. Since its creation, there has been almost universal concern regarding the manner in which the expansion of the BWSL has been pursued: Only Manchester City, themselves heavily indebted by a multi-million pound transfer fee, were supportive of the FA’s decision to pursue relatively immediate, implicit professionalisation criteria. WSL clubs which are a part of a male club have claimed that it is impossible to compete against these clubs and have openly questioned whether their club can survive given the rapid expansion of the league; the manager of Doncaster Rovers Belles, who has suffered relegation due to recent changes to B and C license requirements, strongly expressed the view that their club will not survive unless the league returns to semi-professional status.

9. Fan Engagement and Community Outreach

Chelsea Football Club has put considerable and ongoing effort into maintaining a strong relationship with the local and wider community. The Chelsea Foundation, the Club’s charitable arm, delivers a range of projects aimed at positively impacting various communities in London and elsewhere. These include community health and education initiatives, youth engagement and social inclusion projects, and various football programmes, including the Shooting Stars Girls’ programme. The Foundation has now expanded its reach internationally, with community projects in places such as the Philippines and Thailand (Liu et al., 2019). In addition to this, the Club has also engaged in several projects aimed at reducing discrimination and promoting inclusion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the foundation enabled young digital ambassadors to create videos dealing with social issues, including identity and integration, employability, self-worth, self-esteem, domestic violence, and trauma. The Foundation has worked with schools and youth groups to develop these videos. Another iconic project aims to tackle knife crime and violence in London. These projects build on earlier work, which included workshops with local schools and colleges, providing youths with the tools to gain a better understanding of knife crime, raise their own awareness of the consequences, and then creatively respond to this through and in other media. The Club also has a charitable arm (the Chelsea Foundation), actively working with diverse communities locally and internationally.

In addition to engaging local communities, clubs’ further community outreach initiatives aim to reach a wider audience through projects with fans living farther afield (Cordina et al., 2017). Examples in this field include outreach initiatives in place such as Egypt, where it aims to engage with a rapidly growing fanbase. While this work presents significant challenges, it remains largely unstudied, despite growing observation of clubs reaching out to international communities. The notable change in the speed and frequency of community outreach initiatives following the COVID-19 pandemic is an area offering potential for exploration.

9.1. Supporter Groups

With Chelsea FC Women’s Football Club (CCFCW) flourishing, a need to establish supporter groups and networks beyond merely being a fan, could be felt. Sharing of opinions and talking about the team and its activities with like-minded people is a worthwhile experience. Calling upon new and seasoned fans alike, who wish to be informed and chat about the club, this network is for you. The primary target audience is obviously Chelsea FC supporters with a focus on women’s football, and those wanting to learn and enter into a wider community of fans sharing the same enthusiasm. The platform and part of the group’s responsibility is to promote the great work done by both the club itself and the fan community to support this endeavour. However, for Chelsea involved, this is nothing new. Chelsea has had initiatives to gather supporters in a race or ethnic group, and during the pandemic, a new initiative was launched named ‘Chelsea FC Women’s Fans Forum’. It is worth wondering why the football club, or the WSL in general, has not focused on academic research regarding supporter groups and networks, especially as sporting and fan cultures are in a transitional period. In 2008, three years before the Women’s Super League (WSL) was established, a (Woodhouse et al., 2019). Twenty years on from its inception, along with the 2022 Women’s EURO and the 2023 World Cup, growing attempts to advertise and invest in the game came, but with the intention to promote a ‘miracle’ rather than account for the issues and accomplishments of its less glamorous present.

9.2. Community Programs

• Chelsea FC has partnered with charities, schools and local groups to engage and connect with the local community. The club actively involves the local community in its proposed activities, and shall, wherever possible, use charities, schools and local groups to help deliver its programmes and activities.

• Chelsea FC shall provide professional support, training and facilities to encourage and assist in the development of community groups.

• The Chelsea FC Foundation will also aim to assist its partners by providing, wherever possible, financial, human or material resources.

• Chelsea FC in its work with charities, schools and local community groups will aim to share with and pass on its knowledge of sports participation, sports administration and the general running of a football club.

• Chelsea FC will actively encourage involvement in its community sports programmes by people with disabilities.

• Chelsea FC will continue to liaise with the relevant authorities to ensure the safety & security of people with disabilities in the various environments/locations/types of events in which they participate.

• Chelsea FC shall explore the possibility of forming a reciprocal agreement with similar sporting groups having a local community or marginalized youth group focus elsewhere in the world. These will be done to encourage cultural sharing.

• Chelsea FC and the Chelsea FC Foundation will conduct a review of its charitable activities to ensure they are being conducted in a fair and equitable manner and to ensure as many as possible are able to benefit.

• Chelsea FC will, wherever possible provide appropriate information which may be requested regarding its activities underway outside of the UK. Such information can then be made accessible to League clubs and charitable organisations wishing to examine links overseas. Emerging with a methodology or template for constructive engagement can be pursued collectively through the League (Chiyapo, 2014).

10. Media Coverage and Popularity

The recruitment of large stars has been critical in expanding the popularity of women’s soccer, particularly in the U.S. when the short-lived Women’s United Soccer Association lured Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, and many other household names to the league. Similarly, the Women’s Premier/Super League now attracts English internationals like Alex Scott and American stars like Sydney Leroux to its now acclaimed brand of soccer. Nearly as critical to the marketability of these players and leagues has been the coverage, or lack thereof, that they have received (Kustok, 2010). A common argument has been the “chicken-egg” dilemma encapsulated by the argument that it should not be expected that the performance of women athletes be covered, but rather that, as with other sports, coverage influences popularity and increases public interest and exposure. The idea of nonlinear influence is highlighted by the praise and suspicion that can be given to any given women’s team or league.

Within the years leading up to it and immediately following the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s victory at the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the national media devoted substantial coverage to women’s soccer in general and the national women’s team in particular. U.S. soccer, palate switched with 1994’s men’s FIFA World Cup, experienced coverage expansion that paralleled the national teams’ accomplishments, support by infrastructure like the establishment of Major League Soccer, and, in the face of recent perceived neglect, criticism by what would be dubbed the “soccer media.” The level of national coverage devoted to this event reached a full-court press that had not been seen before. Soccer was integrated into all forms of pre-event marketing, and pre-game interviews featured the players on the front page of every prominent section of every newspaper across the country.

10.1. Television and Streaming

How to watch Chelsea Women’s Football? is a blog introducing different ways fans can watch Chelsea Women’s Football.

Women’s football interest has exploded globally in recent years, as shown by the increasing viewership records year on year for the FIFA Women’s World Cup and UEFA Women’s Euro. The FA Women’s Super League, domestic leagues, and UEFA Women’s Champions League matches are also in increasing demand and viewership. Fortunately, there is a comprehensive way to make sense of the spectating options available.

The FA Women’s Super League broadcasts its games on various platforms. In the UK, FA Player is the primary venue, but BBC and Sky Sports also screen select matches. For audiences outside the UK, coverage varies by country. In the USA, the WSL is on ESPN networks and their ESPN+ subscription service, while in Australia, Optus Sport and 9Now cover the WSL. In Canada, DAZN has all the action, and in South Africa, SuperSport has their rights. In the Nordics, the WSL is available on Viaplay.

Some European countries such as Italy require local subscription services to access the WSL, while in other countries like Germany, France, and the Netherlands, some matches are available to view live on YouTube. For teams also involved in UEFA Women’s Champions League action, it’s easier to find a way to watch, as UEFA have partnered with DAZN to show all UWCL matches globally on their subscription services and YouTube (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018).

10.2. Social Media Presence

Chelsea Women’s Football Club’s social media focus is growing, moving forward with plans to build a Generation Blue platform, encouraging fans of the men’s and women’s teams to join as one global fanbase without gender majorities. The club states that the equality in branding and necessity of the women’s team is clear as their 27 trophies as a Women’s Football Club far outweighs any other team in the country. The 90% increase in followers year-on-year within just 3 years since launch states a clear target market is being reached and the resources a Premier League club has behind them helps too.

Speaking of followers at launch just after the 2016-17 season, @ChelseaFCW boasted just 30 thousand followers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram reaching the milestone of 100k followers across all platforms in early July 2019, just under 3 years later was one of the catch up clubs with @ManchesterCity and with launching alongside @ChelseaFCMedia was always destined for a swift growth level. These statistics clearly are doing their job in targeting newer global audiences.

@ChelseaFCW helps the women’s side of the club grow stature, audience and following seeing into the men’s team fanbase as crowds grow off the pitch to match the on-pitch successes. To capitalise on this even further a recent experiment was conducted to see whether fans would still support the women’s team if they weren’t affiliated with Chelsea. 77% of men followers replied yes indicating a neutrally unsupported gender bias in the presence of the men’s team. However, similar gendered followings are desired to increase prominence on social media and in a wider context. Monitor this growth to facilitate projected goals of reaching 220k and 250k followers on women’s social media this season for the 22-23 season. 77% of 1.8 mill viewership in football was male and Chelsea Single Sign On provides a greater understanding of this output analysis in comparison to traditional influenced fans (Jill Silverman, 2012). 78% of fans on the women’s social media are male; this stat requires a thorough understanding to diversify fanbase ahead of season-long plans for Women in Sport initiatives, further understanding.

11. Financial Aspects

Chelsea FC was founded in 1905 but the women’s team was founded in 1992. The club had long been professional and the opportunity for women to play for his club was rare. Given the privileges that the men had, it would be hard to imagine that the women had similar rights. In 2010 the club officially became a group, it was only several years, accumulating capabilities, gradually becoming a very strong team. In 2014, Jose Mourinho secured an additional £100 million/year sponsorship for his men’s kits. When managers were close to breaking records, his men’s teams would be rewarded an additional £10 million squeezed from the sponsorship. The starting budget that Emma Hayes had to strengthen her squad was only £40 000 (Drury et al., 2022). But she would work miracles with it. She surpassed all expectations and led Chelsea FC to FA cups and super leagues. Because of the incompetence at the very top, Hayes learned to excel in just her team’s — but well beyond that. She had to sympathize with the men’s club’s expectations whenever possible. Months later, squat hopes were dashed. Hayes was forced to sell the club’s only world-class player, Sam Kerr.

Front office machinations dogged Chelsea’s Women team for several years. The club’s atrocious recruitment and retention record, most recently reflected in the poor treatment of Sam Kerr, collectively disappointed. But disappointment turned into suspicion, and then outrage. Could Webb, a distinctly unqualified but powerful man, be guilty of gender bias? Speaking out, however, came with consequences. Sam Kerr’s departure dispatched the final shot to a beleaguered squad. Hayley, a reserve forward with a history of ill health, started the FA Cup final against Manchester City, who had beaten them by three goals. Webb called for women’s football to go professional, and this, to some extent, was accomplished. But for the women’s club to be privileged alongside the men’s, societal change was necessary. Unlike men’s clubs, Webb had very little time, hence choosing to take advantage of the assistance already available. Moore’s appointment was a bright spot against a backdrop of dark times, but the club became increasingly untenable. Webb assuming more responsibilities away from the pitch started a slippery slope. Moore soon departed for Lyon. Inadvertently, an exit saga similar to the club’s most famous one had been ignited.

11.1. Sponsorship Deals

In September 2015, Chelsea invested in their Women’s team, hoping to replicate their success in the Men’s Premier League. They disregarded accusations of “ticking boxes” and showed daring ambition in capital signings. Former Manchester City manager Emma Hayes took charge, bringing two coaches with prior experience. A new stadium was scheduled for completion by the 2017-18 season, promising a state-of-the-art venue (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018). The previous season saw Chelsea finish sixth, their highest finish to date, but expectations on the investment were high. The London club joined Manchester City in the race for equipping its Women’s team for the new season. Throughout the summer transfer window, over £260,000 was spent on new players, breaking the country’s championship transfer record. In November 2015, the club’s Women’s team received an influx of headlines with a phenomenal January transfer window. A new backing sponsorship deal which increased their income from £42,000 to £741,000 meant the Women’s team could not only recruit England’s No.1 keeper, but also players from the UEFA Women’s Champions’ League. Significant signings led to increased worldwide remotes for the Women’s team, with sites showing an increased dedication in monitoring the Women’s game.

With its competitive global reach, not only in its players but also its Women’s activities, Chelsea reached new crowds for its Women’s team. With attendance records and TV broadcasters, Chelsea hosting Arsenal for a Women’s Super League match became one of the league’s biggest tests. Adjectives like “unpredictable” and “exhilarating” meant Chelsea were on the best possible path to a new sponsorship deal ahead of its UEFA Women’s Champions League campaign. Constructing a Women’s team to compete as sporting equals meant to tap into the emotional investment of a local fan base, previously relied on a dominant local team. Empirical work gave preliminary indications that alignment with gender stereotypes and “othering” approach create a fearful image. Such research can only develop a national league and an ownership in the Women’s game. High-profile signings both increased competition and raised the gap between teams, testing football became a precondition to match with the Men’s team community.

11.2. Revenue Generation

Compared to many other women’s leagues and tournaments, financial growth has been rapid for WSL 1 clubs; particularly for the twenty richest clubs in the top-tier leagues across Europe, the football and media markets have exhibited the greatest growth of all European women’s leagues. Chelsea FCW has a five-year commercial revenue growth rate of 238%, which, though high, is low relative to rapid growth by especially dominant clubs. Chelsea FCW has many commercial revenue opportunities, such as corporate sponsorship, merchandising, hospitality, match day, lottery, and media sponsorship. Chelsea FCW directly employs commercial staff to evaluate and oversee the marketing of corporate sponsorships and provide merchandising consulting services. Expenditure on robust commercial facilities should also be planned. A state-of-the-art venue is essential to enhance corporate entertainment activities.

Revenue generation can also be increased through loans and debts. A club could draw on loans or debts when business activity is insufficient to cover cash flow changes. Chelsea FCW’s bank balance has been shown to remain high or stable since 2012, and as a result, a good debt structure, no obligation to pay bondholders, and GDP growth would continue to positively benefit clubs. Chelsea FCW has a legitimate source of revenue, and wide publicity and fame have been granted via the performance of stars, leading to high ticket sales for fixtures with big teams. Furthermore, loan capacity can permit clubs to buy prime players, and good loan management is beneficial. Lastly, price adjustment can be considered, which would cover setting new prices for match tickets and merchandise. In line with budget and general managers, Chelsea FCW’s BOD can propose lower prices to extend coverage or capture market share. Tickets for fixtures with teams widely attended by local resident fans, such as Arsenal or Sunderland when WSL 1 was played in January or on Tuesday in late 2013, may be raised (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018).

12. Challenges and Controversies

As a high-performing Women’s Super League team in UK football, Chelsea FC and their adoption of a social media strategy incorporating influencer marketing via TikTok will be analysed. Social media content for publication will be produced and explored through a creative media production project. TikTok influencer marketing will be defined and the social media strategies of Chelsea FC Women, their fans, and the wider community explored. Ultimately, this practice-based research project will highlight the work of Chelsea FC Women in providing relatable content for fans that reflects a shared understanding of interests, promoting wider dialogue on issues coping with clout chasing parallel to the modern age of football influencer marketing.

Ensuring the continued growth of women’s football in the UK will require high-performing teams to understand how and why the game reaches audiences beyond matchday football and external industry partnerships. Social media content in collaboration with TikTok influencers that humanise players and share insight into their lives whilst also addressing topical issues in football today is an area of growth explored through the production of social media posts reflecting the personality of the game’s growth and dynamism. The work of Chelsea FC Women, their fans and the wider community provides relatable content that showcases shared personas and interests. This improves engagement and loyalty from fans whilst driving wider dialogue on the issues raised from clout chasing followers through comedy sketches and analysis.

The long-term effect of this engagement through humour is uncertain, however virality alone does not suffice as an engagement strategy, it must build and celebrate comunidades for fans through their shared interests, even in light of unsuccessful FA bids. The commercial side of women’s football is growing quickly as attendance and social media followings boom on platforms like TikTok; with their humour and heart players have the power to catalyse a new generation of fans through a sense of belonging and shared values. Ultimately this work seeks to inform high-performing teams on the importance of social media content strategy and the need to support creators committing themselves to accepting sponsorship and posting brand content on pure passion and love for the game.

12.1. Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap in football is a complex issue, but a simple one: women often get paid less than men for doing the same or similar work. The infamous pay gap has some particularly eye-popping statistics in professional football. In September 2022, it was revealed that the total prize money for this year’s Women’s World Cup was $60 million compared to the Men’s World Cup, which had significantly more, at $440 million. In terms of domestic leagues, the highest paid women’s football star, Sam Kerr, of Chelsea Women’s Football Club, is on £200,000 per-year, compared to five men in the Premier League who all earn £20 million or more annually. Indeed, there has also been a £10 million penalty on patriarchal practices from men’s to women’s football due to less exposure, less media coverage and less sponsorship/advertising opportunities.

This means it is the media’s fault that men are paid more than women. Yet, as the pay gap becomes narrower, it is notable to acknowledge the change in sponsorship deals, media coverage, exposure and, ultimately, attendance; turning a blind eye to the things that get better, and placing all your attention on the things that are still wrong, is fully ignoring them. Having said all that, the brutal truth is women are still a minority in football. Women’s football has a mere 20 million fans. Pre-pandemic, their biggest TV viewing figures were 3 million people watching the Women’s Champions League Final compared to 68 million people watching the Men’s Champions League Final. Reports indicate that there are more men playing video games than women. A flagship football video game allows you to manage women’s teams for the first time. Given that there has been a license of fully licensed leagues of men’s football, we are likely to see a major gap in the number of players and teams compared to the Women’s game.

In July 2022, a football club became the first to partner for a video game and have a women’s team in the curtails of Ultimate Team Mode. However, the issue was brought back to the forefront, as women’s Ultimate Team was not featured in the latest version. Would this also create an imbalance and a wider gap between play both modes and attention given to those modes? Furthermore, gender should be a normal consideration for video games. For example, in a mobile football game, interactive gameplay and management style can determine how much you want to play and enjoy, as opposed to which gender team you will control. If online football games want to thrive, they should simply be football games.

12.2. Issues of Equality

The rise of Women’s Football domestically and globally continue to be grossly underfunded and perceived as ‘lesser’ than the men’s equivalent. Despite continuous success; Chelsea Women’s Football Club in particular seize little of their male counterparts spoils to remove the second-class citizen moniker. Which begs the question -overwhelmingly commercially successful, widely regarded as the best and with unprecedented support domestically and internationally, why is it so little commercial revenue translates to growth in women’s football? There is a lack of recognition of the economic potential of Chelsea Women’s Football Club in the same way it’s male equivalent exists. This can manifest itself in ways like a belief that women’s football doesn’t need to be promoted to help it grow, and simply investment in the club will guarantee growth, unlike the male game which is based in far stricter neoliberal assumptions (Woodhouse et al., 2019). The lack of financial backing to create a more effective media and marketing strategy hinders outreach and development initiatives, whilst the equability narrative can make it less marketable than the male game. Predominantly, due to a lack of belief in and understanding of the financial potential of women’s football and Chelsea Women’s Football Club, marketing is conducted with men’s football and UEFA Women’s Champions League broadcasts rather than targeted further outreach.

Despite never facing relegation and winning the FA WSL 1 on two occasions off the 2014-2015 and 2020-2021 seasons, WSL2 on the 2018-2019 season and the Women’s FA Cup in 2015-2016 and 2020-2021, other growth avenues like consulting for non-league clubs, expansion beyond London, conducting outreach in schools and own-brand initiatives have not been seized. This failure to monetise further, more grassroots initiatives keeps income below sustainable levels as potential income flows are being left untapped, and not just to fear of investment returns but the fear of being unprepared or unwilling to profit on success. Sharing commercial income from the FA Premier League downwards is something currently lacking from the Women’s Football pyramid, with Chelsea Women’s Football Club missing out on millions.

A knee-jerk reaction to incoming investment would initially create fair and equitable disparity to regional and grassroots clubs, where fears of ‘sudden success’ would be entirely founded. However, without a nominal share in the financial spoils the current inequity may become incongruous enough to destroy the prime motivation for female clubs to thrive, such issues faced by the men’s game. The club’s finances became a loss-making business proposition for more than a decade after the 1992 Premier League allocation structure propped up only a small cadre of ‘big clubs’. An open dialogue to identify the clearest path towards equilibrium would be best found together, rather than ‘teeth and claws’ protection and irrationality over a medium-term prize pot.

13. Future Prospects

Despite the commercial backdrop of this paper, its analysis of the success of the Women’s Super League remains incomplete. The WSL does not, and cannot, exist in a vacuum. It is necessary to consider the broader implications of structural developments at the elite level for the nature, distribution of resources and substantive equality of the women’s game as a whole. In interrogating causes of success, it is important to seek the views of stakeholders who conceptualise success differently and prioritise on-field growth over revenues. These parties are primarily outside the structures or indirect beneficiaries of the resources, infrastructure, legitimacy and visibility that WSL broadcast deals and institutional investment confer.

To understand how a new system of elite women’s football promotes equality, it is necessary to ask on what terms inclusion in that system is offered or denied. A waters’ wider analysis would consider what the WSL’s development might mean for recruitment and capital investments in organisations to take part, or exclusion from them. The present analysis omits these crucial elements because the WSL exists in its current form. Examining the transition of the FA Women’s Super League too closely resembles hunting a deer that is already dead. The task now is to consider what the carcass might convey about the broader ecosystem within which the animal lived and how that might change in future (Woodhouse et al., 2019).

More starkly, this analysis engages only with elite women’s football, and for this it has already been critiqued. The question of what might constrain the potential of grassroots or amateur stakeholders to challenge male supremacy in wider governance structures is pressing. There is a danger of technological determinism wherein digital broadcast and attendance growth at elite levels are simply seen as without fault or negative fallout. Questions of who suffocates on this bounty of riches and who might be extracted from the game entirely are crucial. Without a full understanding of the consequences of the successful Women’s Super League as presently constituted, it is difficult to understand what future modifications should be made.

13.1. Growth of chelsea  Women’s Football

In parallel to the success of England’s women’s national team, the Women’s Super League (WSL) in England has expanded massively in the past five years in terms of media coverage and growth of clubs. On the pitch, the WSL is widely regarded as one of the top divisions in women’s football and has risen to be one of the football leagues to watch in the next few years (Woodhouse et al., 2019). In a period of unprecedented growth for the women’s game, this analysis is aimed at understanding the changes in the control and organisation of the women’s game both inside England and at UEFA level. It examines the historical development of England’s top women’s league, from the inception of the Women’s Football Associations in the early 1990s through to the professionalisation of the WSL and the eventual expectation of such models being imposed in other UEFA member associations. It argues that while some of the changes in governance structures are positive, they may also add further strain to the internal politics of the women’s game in England.

The author seeks to understand the priorities and tensions that emerged in this process, particularly with regard to the distribution of revenues and resources at both club and domestic league level. It has been positioned as a middle range analysis – one that resists a more generalisable or comparative approach to the broad changes in governance structures in women’s football across national and regional governing bodies and associated leagues and clubs (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018). In this way, the author hopes to reach a level of particularity that presents complexity and nuance in the understanding of the politics surrounding the live and mediated exposure of women’s elite football.

A central theme is the growing stakes in women’s football and the roles that a number of clubs play in that. It offers a certain understanding of the opportunities and strengths of the current governance models in the women’s game but equally provides insight into concerns around the oligopolistic control of broadcasting rights, and ultimately advertising space, that surround the elite women’s game by a small number of clubs.

13.2. Chelsea’s Vision for the Future

The vision for the future has been set out by Chelsea Women’s Football Club, as part of its five-year strategy, ‘Our Journey to Greatness 2026’. The club intends to be the best women’s football club in the world, with a commitment to accountability, collaboration, and transparency while continuing to grow participation, performance, and pathway opportunities in women’s football. Increasing the profile and awareness of women’s football is a strategic priority for Chelsea Women, through improvements in match-day experience, wider fan engagement, and a commitment to addressing the gender imbalance within football media. The build of Chelsea’s women’s gain of the season – the continent leaving at Birmingham City FC or Arsenal Women FC – highlights currently end goal. Each strategy will focus on how matches are advertised, with a greater investment in fan engagement via legacy initiatives, internal media engagement, target audience engagement, and sponsorship activations for every match. Chelsea is creating opportunities for other organizations to hold their women’s away matches at Kingsmeadow. Playing in front of empty stadiums and with matches being arranged on the spur of the moment meant that Chelsea and most other women’s clubs missed out on taking advantage of the extensive off-field opportunities produced by the huge increase in interest in women’s football. Chelsea will develop a central fan engagement proposition for travel to women’s away matches with the aim of tying in the wider Chelsea FC fan base with the women’s team, increasing awareness and attendance at away matches. Development of the match-day experience so that it exceeds that of rivals and offers something unique, including a cup final and European matches. Chelsea’s position in the WSL has gone from defending champions to mid-table with the off-field prospects neglected due to the on-field game taking an immediate precedence. In particular, the fact-at-all neutered shed end, unlike the recent Manchester City match, and a half-empty main stand against Arsenal FC in the first women’s northward London derby since social media had exploded post-England winning the Euros. The then-upcoming matches have been advertised on Chelsea FC’s W teams social media channel to date with some further fan engagement or awareness generated initiatives. Well regarded as the best commentators and analysts in the business, yet are badly misused by Chelsea. A greater fan engagement proposition would entail this role being expanded to include giving commentary on non-live content to draw in new fans (Fielding-Lloyd et al., 2018). Chelsea’s existing initiatives – Chelsea Chance! Foundation, a charity which aims to provide free sports activity and coaching for disadvantaged children – as a starting point to develop legacy initiatives.

14. Conclusion (Chelsea Women’s Football)

For the club and players, the historical backdrop generated by the FA is central to understanding the large number of documents that marked the inception of the Women’s Super League, and in particular, the strategy paper “Building the Game”. For the FA, the narrative surrounding the five target areas to grow and develop women’s and girls’ football – participation, organisational development, quality of the experience, and the aim to qualify for the UEFA Women’s European Championships outside of England – positioned the FA in the best possible light because the achievement of targets brought new resources, prestige, and status to a previously neglected part of the game. For all media participants, unused footage of players who were excluded from previous editions and items concerning players’ movements provide evidence of a football identity and media narrative creation that, while unprecedented in UK media delivery of women’s football, parallels coverage elsewhere.

The creation of the WSL and subsequent decision to ride on the coattails of this were situated along a timeline of historical documents. Yet, the same lack of attentiveness to women’s football and the value of existing women’s football structures was wrought on the FA. Other possible histories emerged from modular studies, fan and supporters publication archives, discussion threads on official club or fan websites, informal discussions with players or people involved with male or female clubs, documents possessed by clubs or individuals, and other bio-contextual information. Despite this, there remained a tendency to focus on the mine as the central narratives featured in the national media, where absent recollections across individuals were situated amongst those who inhabited privilege. Many impermissible player actions prior to the creation of the WSL were popularly presented as “pointless” or “foolish” in mainstream media.

Consequently, identifying and acknowledging the careful intersection of shifting historicities as concerted efforts to shape media narratives and structures in the best interests of clubs and players was difficult. In place of clear, timeless expositions of the passage of time, inclusions were often fragmented artefacts within a mess of other materials. Similarly, many documents and material artefacts collected, used, or inherited were never meant to be preserved as historical records. Football was always contextualised as temporally infinite. It is only with retrospective analysis that many existing records can be identified as historical, which generates difficulties in identifying, organising, and transmitting narratives. However, this is inherent to enduring identity, as messages are intertwined with the faith of audiences and receding memories mean that frozen by-definition time does not conform to strict temporal delineations. There is a danger that the chance of something is the same as disbelief in something.

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