Chelsea women have announced their latest partnership, but this one in particular feels more significant than any standard commercial partnership.
The London club has recently announced a new partnership with Fertility Plus, one of the capital’s leading fertility clinics. The partnership brings greater attention to player welfare in women’s football, particularly fertility and reproductive health – areas that are often overlooked or treated as taboo.
For many years, there has been a shadow hanging over the topics of motherhood and pregnancy within women’s football, with players often scared to speak openly about their experiences. However, with the continued growth of the women’s game, these conversations are becoming increasingly important to have, and increasingly difficult to ignore.
Women have continued to prove that it is possible to reach the very highest levels of the game while also growing a family. Sonia Bompastor, Emma Hayes, Alex Morgan, Melanie Leupolz and Katrina Gorry are just a few examples, each with their own experiences of balancing motherhood with a career in football.
So much of women’s sport has been built around a male athletic model and, as a consequence, women’s health has often been overlooked, particularly when it comes to menstruation, pregnancy and fertility. These are all parts of a female athlete’s life that can have a significant impact on everything from performance to, as recent studies have suggested, injury risk.
Player welfare is a crucial part of football, particularly within the women’s game, which is why this partnership is about taking that extra step to support women not only on the pitch, but in their lives away from football too.
Within their initial announcement, Chelsea revealed that the partnership includes a ‘first-of-its-kind fund’, giving every women’s first-team player access to fertility assessments, treatments, counselling, workshops and individualised support.
For those in same-sex relationships, or those who may experience fertility difficulties, access to good fertility treatment can be expensive and, in some cases, inaccessible. Having both financial and professional support available can help players through what may already be a difficult time, while removing some of the additional stresses surrounding their reproductive health.
Chelsea’s Partnership with Fertility Plus is therefore about more than just providing access to fertility treatment. It is about recognising that the careers of female footballers do not have to exist separately from the rest of their lives and that decisions around fertility, motherhood and family should not have to come at the expense of a career in football.
As we continue to watch the women’s game grow, we have to acknowledge the greater responsibility in supporting players alongside this growth. Chelsea Women may be taking the first step in making women’s reproductive health part of the conversation, but the bigger question is whether this can become something players across the game and wider sport can expect, rather than something only available to a minority of clubs with the resources to provide it.
https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/chelsea-fc-women-and-fertility-plus-launch-new-partnership
