Chelsea become the first WSL club with a fertility fund
Chelsea have gone further than any other Women’s Super League club on reproductive health. The Blues have launched a joint fertility and player maternity policy, built with Fertility Plus, a London clinic, giving players access to egg freezing, IVF treatment, smear tests, contraception counseling and educational workshops, all on a voluntary basis.
Head coach Sonia Bompastor framed the shift in plain terms. “You don’t have to choose anymore between your professional career and your personal life being a mum. Now, both are possible,” she said. It answers a question that has shadowed women’s football for years: what happens to a career built around peak physical years if a player wants a family during them.
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Built by a former goalkeeper who wanted more than egg freezing
Carly Telford, Chelsea’s commercial manager and a former England goalkeeper, led the search for a clinic partner. She wanted an operation that offered more than the single service most fertility programs in sport stop at. “All-encompassing” is the word she used to describe what she was after, and the resulting policy covers far more ground than egg storage: personalized pregnancy and post-partum recovery plans, financial help with childcare on away trips for up to a year after a player returns, enhanced adoption and parental leave, and wage support during that stretch.
Six years after the program that started it
This isn’t Chelsea’s first move into player health territory that most clubs still avoid. Former head coach Emma Hayes introduced menstrual cycle tracking at the club back in February 2020, a program still credited across the women’s game with changing how conditioning staff plan training loads. Chelsea have also backed pregnant players in practice, not just in policy. Melanie Leupolz returned to first-team action in 2022 after giving birth, an example the club now points to when explaining why the new fund exists.
The WSL has expanded its calendar and its broadcast reach over the past two seasons, and with that growth has come more scrutiny of how clubs treat players beyond matchday. Chelsea’s policy sets a marker that rival clubs, several of which have quietly explored similar programs, will now be measured against.
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