Former Lyon head coach Sonia Bompastor named new Chelsea boss after Emma Hayes’ departure to lead the USWNT

Frenchwoman Sonia Bompastor was named Chelsea coach on Wednesday, leaving Lyon to succeed new United States women’s national team coach Emma Hayes in London.

Bompastor has long been considered the favorite to take the job, with NWSL coaches Casey Stoney and Laura Harvey also on the list according to ESPN, and made it official with a four-year contract. A female coach was a priority for Chelsea, by Sky Sportswith the aim of hiring someone who would follow in Hayes’ footsteps as a passionate supporter of women’s football.

The 43-year-old began her senior management career at Lyon in 2021, leading them to three Division 1 titles and UEFA Women’s Champions League triumph in 2022. Bompastor was also in charge during Lyon’s unbeaten league campaign national this season and made the UWCL Final, which they lost 2-0 to Barcelona in Bilbao, Spain, on Saturday. It is an impressive feat for Bompastor, who was entrusted with the task of keeping Lyon competitive in Europe as they went from serial winners to top-flight contenders amid more investment in women’s football.

Bompastor’s Lyon side often played 4-3-3 and were known for their attacking prowess, with Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg scoring 12 goals in Division 1 this season and Kadidiatou Diani topping the league scoring charts. UWCL with eight goals. That style of play will be welcomed at Chelsea, who have been a high-scoring team during Hayes’ 12 years in charge, as well as their Champions League record. Bompastor is the only female coach to win the UWCL in the last 15 years, the only trophy that eluded Hayes during her illustrious spell in London.

Big shoes to fill

As with Lyon, Bompastor will be tasked with continuing Chelsea’s successful reputation, of which Hayes was the architect. Chelsea were a semi-professional club when Hayes became one of the Women’s Super League’s first coaches in 2012, and had limited resources to support themselves. We had nothing,” Hayes said on NBC’s “Today” show last week. “We didn’t have footballs, we didn’t have an office, I didn’t have employees and more than 12 teams, we came from nothing to reach the three best teams in the world.”

Hayes is now one of the WSL’s most successful managers, winning the title eight times and lifting the FA Cup five times. She has also won the 2021 FIFA Best Football Coach award and the WSL Manager of the Year award six times, and also became the first woman to win the Football Writers’ Association Tribute award this year.

She also pushed for increased investment in the club, which began paying female players full-time in 2015 and has set the standards for women’s football in England. Some of the specific changes she called for were more opportunities for women’s teams to play in larger stadiums, tailoring players’ individualized plans according to their menstrual cycles, and additional medical support for players during pregnancy.

Bompastor seems to fully recognize the expectations he faces.

“I am extremely grateful to be joining Chelsea Football Club as head coach of the women’s national team,” she said in a statement released by the club. “It’s an institution in English football. I will give my all to this new project to meet the ambitions of the club, the coaching staff and the players. I hope to live up to Emma’s legacy and continue the work that has been done in recent years. Let it begin the adventure.”

Potential for new investments

Chelsea coupled the Bompastor news with the announcement that it is looking for new investors for the women’s team as part of a new strategic growth plan.

The club has hired global commercial bank BDT & MSD Partners to look for potential investors, who are expected to take a minority stake in the women’s team. This confirms a Bloomberg report Since the beginning of this month, Chelsea have received interest from potential minority owners, which could help the club in its aim to bypass Premier League penalties for breaching spending rules in relation to the men’s national team.

Chelsea joked that new stakeholders could lead to further investment in infrastructure, training facilities and player development. In the meantime, however, the club will restructure things so that the women’s team has specific resources and operates alongside the men’s team, rather than behind it. Chelsea will now have funding, management and commercial leadership allocated to the women’s team. The restructuring will also allow the club to court investors specific to the women’s team, rather than using the men’s team as a conduit for funds for the women’s team.