{"id":313553,"date":"2025-12-13T08:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/313553\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T08:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:12:07","slug":"we-are-more-successful-than-they-wanted-us-to-be-chloe-kelly-on-team-squabbles-scoring-that-penalty-and-surviving-sports-gender-wars-england-womens-football-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/313553\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We are more successful than they wanted us to be\u2019: Chloe Kelly on team squabbles, scoring that penalty and surviving sport\u2019s gender wars | England women’s football team"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of last year, Chloe Kelly was seriously considering stepping away from football. She was deeply unhappy at Manchester City, her team since 2020, where it seemed as if they wouldn\u2019t let her play, nor let her leave. She wasn\u2019t getting enough time on the pitch, so wasn\u2019t sure that she would be selected for England, who were preparing to defend the title she had helped win in 2022 in the Euros tournament<\/a>. She was 26, about to turn 27. She had been a professional footballer since she was 18, but her mother was starting to get concerned. She desperately wanted her daughter to be happy again. \u201cI remember my mum coming up to see me and she was meant to go home, but she didn\u2019t go home, because she was so worried,\u201d recalls Kelly.<\/p>\n

Less than a year later, and things are very different. At the time of writing, Kelly is favourite to win Sports Personality of the Year after a history-making comeback. At the end of January, she was loaned to Arsenal and in May she<\/a> <\/a>lifted the Champions League trophy with the team<\/a>, very much the underdogs in the final against Barcelona, whom they defeated 1-0. At the end of July, she scored that penalty for England, securing them a second Euros title, against arch-rivals Spain. She was fifth in the Ballon D\u2019or F\u00e9minin, and named in the Fifpro World 11 squad for the first time<\/a> \u2013 a peer-voted list of the best footballers in the world. Against the odds, then, 2025 has turned out to be a great year. \u201cFor sure,\u201d Kelly smiles. \u201cTo bounce back, that\u2019s what makes it the best year of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly with the 2025 Champions League trophy (top), and with her fellow Arsenal players (front right, above), who beat Barcelona 1-0 in the final. Photographs: Jose Breton\/NurPhoto\/ Shutterstock; Soccrates Images\/Getty <\/p>\n

Trying to pin down Kelly is not the easiest of tasks. The football calendar is notoriously overstuffed, to the point of controversy. We finally speak the day after Arsenal beat Real Madrid in the Women\u2019s Champions League<\/a>, a much-needed victory in a turbulent season for the team so far. It is only midmorning, but she and her husband, Scott Moore, drove up to Manchester from London first thing, so that Kelly could see a chiropractor. The appointment was at 7.30am. \u201cI\u2019ve had a little niggle in my back,\u201d she explains. The next women\u2019s World Cup is not until 2027, so there\u2019s plenty of time, but, is it anything we need to be worried about? \u201cNo, no, no!\u201d she says, quickly. \u201cI just had a little spasm in the Bayern Munich game. I\u2019m fine. Nothing that stops me.\u201d<\/p>\n

We speak on video call; she\u2019s casual in a hoodie, with a massive rock on her ring finger and Moore sitting next\u00a0to her. She keeps him off-camera, but regularly turns to check with him that she\u2019s right about things like dates, or the ages of her siblings. They\u2019re waiting to go to a spa for the afternoon. \u201cNot so many days off in football, so we make the most of when we do get them,\u201d she shrugs. It\u2019s their dog Brody\u2019s first birthday at the weekend. (She has two dogs, whom she refers to as \u201cthe boys\u201d.) They\u2019re throwing a little party for Brody and his brother, who belongs to her mum. And after the party she\u2019ll be reporting for international duty at St\u00a0George\u2019s Park, the final England camp of the year before friendlies against China and Ghana. The bounce back continues.<\/p>\n

(It may have hit a temporary bump in the road. A couple of weeks later, Kelly was injured during the first half of the Ghana match. Arsenal manager Ren\u00e9e Slegers gave an update at a press conference in early December, calling it \u201can injury, a little ligament in the back of her knee\u201d. It looks as if Kelly will be sidelined until Christmas. \u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d Slegers has said.)<\/p>\n

Photograph: David Titlow\/The Guardian. Dress: Burberry. Boots: Kalda. Earrings and rings: YSSO<\/p>\n

Few footballers are as cool and composed on the pitch as this striker, no matter how high-pressure the situation. She is regularly described by commentators as a combination of fire and ice<\/a>. In 2022, in the Euros final, she scored the winning goal for England against Germany \u2013 her ecstatic top-off celebration earned her a yellow card \u2013 but to do it again required next-level calm. In 2025, the England-Spain final had come down to penalties. It was up to Kelly to bring it home for a second time. She took her trademark run-up and thumped it past the Spanish keeper, then jogged back to her teammates as if there had never been any question that England would do it all over again.<\/p>\n

Her family feel the pressure far more than she does, she says. \u201cScott definitely gets nervous. When I asked him, did you think I was going to score a penalty against Spain, he said yes. Whereas my brothers were \u2026 quite nervous.\u201d Did they say no? \u201cThey didn\u2019t say no. They just said it was nerve-racking!\u201d<\/p>\n

Chloe Kelly and Jill Scott celebrate England winning the 2022 Euros. Photograph: Peter Cziborra\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Kelly is so preternaturally collected and confident that sports psychologists must be fascinated by her. \u201cI\u00a0work closely with psychologists, to make sure my game is at the top,\u201d she nods. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t just happen overnight. I think throughout my career \u2026 maybe I\u2019m\u00a0too confident at times? But I really back myself. I\u00a0like to play on the edge quite a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always that way. She was 19 when she got her first senior England cap. \u201cI went on to the pitch and my legs were just like jelly,\u201d she recalls. It wasn\u2019t until she tore her anterior cruciate ligament in 2021 that her mindset began to shift. \u201cBefore my ACL, I was definitely more of a nervous player. Having the injury allowed me to think, what am I nervous for? I\u2019ve gone through the worst situation and I\u2019ve had to do my rehab for that. So what is fazing me?\u201d<\/p>\n

The injury was no surprise in a way; research suggests\u00a0that female footballers are two to eight times more likely to tear the ACL<\/a>; this WSL season alone, seven players, including Kelly\u2019s fellow Lioness Michelle Agyemang and Arsenal teammate Katie Reid, have suffered an ACL injury. Players have spoken out about a congested calendar, including the England captain, Leah Williamson, who has called the schedule \u201cunsustainable\u201d<\/a>. Is it being taken seriously enough? What can be done? \u201cFor me, there\u2019s not enough research because, actually, we haven\u2019t been professionals for long enough,\u201d says Kelly. She lists potential issues: who knows what kind of\u00a0boot\u00a0design is better for women\u2019s feet, or what sort of pitch is right for women? \u201cBut what I will say is, the negativity around ACLs make it harder to go through, than actually what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Write your own script, control your destiny: I stick by that, because I wasn\u2019t in a position to do so for so longPhotograph: David Titlow\/The Guardian. Styling: Roz Donoghue. Hair: Yoshitaka Miyazaki using Oribe. Makeup: Makeup by Michelle Dacillo at Agency 41 using Dior Forever Foundation and Dior Capture Le S\u00e9rum. Jacket: Nanushka. Earrings: Completedworks.<\/p>\n

What does she mean? \u201cIf a player does their ACL and the first thing you see is negativity around it, it\u00a0automatically puts you in a negative mindset,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know. Maybe it\u2019s just the way I think.\u201d From a sprain to a break, any injury can be tough, but the ACL has become a particular kind of bogeyman. The first thing she told Reid was: \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be tough and it\u2019s gonna be horrible, but it\u2019s not as bad as sometimes it is [portrayed as being]. You know you\u2019re missing a long period of time, but any injury you\u2019re going to miss that.\u201d There needs to be far more research into why women appear to be more susceptible, Kelly insists. \u201cThe calendar is crazy. You want the best players on the pitch, but maybe there\u2019s too many games in the\u00a0calendar, in both women and men\u2019s football, for our bodies to deal with the loading.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Kelly, the hardest moment in her professional life was not her ACL injury. \u201cIt was not being able to control what was happening in my career.\u201d She is talking about the events that finally came to a head in January. \u201cIt was a dark time,\u201d she says. She had been at Manchester City since 2020, but her relationship with the club had soured. She spent most of her time on the bench, starting only once in the first nine matches of the season. In November 2024, England manager Sarina Wiegman described Kelly\u2019s lack of minutes as \u201ca\u00a0concern\u201d and \u201ca hard situation\u201d<\/a>. \u201cChloe knows that she is not in the best position with her club at the moment,\u201d Wiegman said.<\/p>\n

Just before the transfer deadline, Kelly posted a\u00a0statement to her Instagram<\/a>, stating that her future was not with the club, and asking to be released from her contract, adding that, \u201cto be dictated whom I can and can\u2019t join with only four months left of the football season is having a huge impact on not only my career but my mental wellbeing\u201d. City allowed her to leave and join Arsenal on loan for the rest of the season.(She signed for them permanently in July.) But the drama continued. Just over a day later, she posted another note, accusing the club of \u201cbriefing journalists against me,\u201d calling reporters \u201cto assassinate my character\u201d<\/a> and planting negative stories in the football press. Looking back on the situation in August, City\u2019s then boss Gareth Taylor told the BBC that he had \u201calways tried to remain as professional as possible\u201d and had \u201cstayed true to his role\u201d<\/a> as manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking charge of your own destiny is massive,\u201d Kelly says, today. \u201cAfter we won the Champions League, I said, write your own script, control your destiny, and I stick by that. Because I wasn\u2019t in a position to do so for so long, but speaking out for what you believe in is huge.\u201d She is proud to have come back from those dark days. \u201cBut also, on reflection, I wish I spoke earlier.\u201d So no regrets, other than that you wish you\u2019d done it sooner? \u201cNo, definitely no regrets,\u201d she says, firmly.<\/p>\n

Goalkeeper Mary Earps was Kelly\u2019s teammate for years, and they won England\u2019s first Euros trophy together. In her autobiography<\/a>, Earps went public about her feelings towards Hannah Hampton, who replaced her as England\u2019s No 1. She wrote about how she felt that Hampton\u2019s \u201cbehaviour behind the scenes at the Euros had frequently risked derailing training sessions and team resources\u201d<\/a>, and accused Wiegman of rewarding it.<\/p>\n

Kelly celebrates scoring England\u2019s winning penalty with goalkeeper Mary Earps in the Women\u2019s Finalissima against Brazil at Wembley Stadium, 2023. Photograph: Adam Davy\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

The story was massive, sending shock waves through the world of women\u2019s football. Other players shared their views on it. Lucy Bronze argued that female players are \u201cconstantly under a magnifying glass\u201d<\/a>. Former Lioness Ellen White spoke of an \u201cunwritten oath\u201d<\/a>, that what happens in the dressing room, stays in the team.<\/p>\n

So has Kelly read the book? \u201cI haven\u2019t,\u201d she says, though she is clearly prepared for it to come up, and looks as unruffled as ever. \u201cI think, for me, I\u2019m in a position where Hannah is my teammate, and we support our teammates. We support Mary, who was our teammate, too. Mary\u2019s told her story. And, of course, in football, you don\u2019t really see it too often, but I think, for me, Mary\u2019s voiced herself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her own statement about Man City, Kelly said she felt it was \u201ctime to be open and transparent\u201d. Is\u00a0this a\u00a0similar situation? She disagrees. \u201cI think, for me, it was either, I speak up and I speak out on what was happening, or I take a step away from the game. Mary\u2019s situation is obviously writing a book of her whole journey. So, probably a little different.\u201d And, honestly, Kelly jokes, she\u2019s really not a reader. \u201cFor me, both are my teammates, and I\u2019m proud to stand side by side with my teammates.\u201d That\u2019s very tactful and balanced, I\u00a0say. \u201cBut that\u2019s me! I can\u2019t comment on something if I\u00a0haven\u2019t read the whole book. Maybe one day I\u2019ll listen to the audiobook. Because reading is not my forte.\u201d<\/p>\n

To many, and for good reason, Kelly is a hero. Predictably, to some, her self-belief can seem like arrogance. There are corners of the internet where people post about how she comes across as cocky, or cringe. When she says that she might be \u201ctoo confident\u201d, what does she mean? Sometimes, she explains, she\u2019ll have confidence on the pitch, and then afterwards she\u2019ll\u00a0be hard on herself, and wonder if she could have\u00a0done it differently, or done it better. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s \u2018too confident\u2019. But I think confidence is huge. Especially\u00a0as a woman, to be able to step on to a pitch or to be able to step into a room, I feel a lot of confidence within myself. I think that comes from playing with my brothers and growing up with my mum and dad. They would say, be yourself, and just don\u2019t change who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly is the youngest of seven. She has one sister, Paris, who doesn\u2019t like football. \u201cShe wishes me good luck, and she\u2019ll say to me, \u2018Oh, your hair looked lovely today\u2019, but she couldn\u2019t care less if I score, if I miss, if I have a great game, if I have a bad game,\u201d she says, not unhappily. She has five brothers, three of whom are triplets, and they had a big role in making her confident, tough and unflappable. She grew up playing in the cages of the Windmill Park estate, in Southall, west London. There\u2019s a commemorative plaque there now in her honour. \u201cIf I bring someone to my mum\u2019s house, me and Scott are always, like, let\u2019s drive to show them the cages,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very special place to me. Always will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her brothers never treated her differently because she was a girl. \u201cThey never made it easy. Even to their friends, they\u2019d say, \u2018Don\u2019t go easy on her, she\u2019s playing here with us.\u2019\u201d Her oldest brother is 10 years older than her, but playing against his friends never fazed her. \u201cI\u2019d\u00a0be, like, \u2018I\u00a0can beat you, let\u2019s go,\u2019\u201d she grins. \u201cThey\u2019d say to my brothers, she\u2019s a bit cheeky, ain\u2019t she?\u201d And did you beat them? \u201cYeah,\u201d she says. \u201cI think sometimes I\u00a0did. Sometimes I lost! But I learned from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

At school, she played on boys\u2019 teams. She would arrive for a match and know they were being judged for having a girl on the squad. \u201cAnd then I\u2019d come away with player of the tournament. And I remember seeing my mum\u2019s face, like, so proud, saying, \u2018You did it, girl.\u2019\u201d She knew then that football was what she wanted to do. \u201cAnd, academically, I wasn\u2019t too clever,\u201d she laughs. \u201cStill ain\u2019t.\u201d Unlike some of her teammates, who felt they needed a backup career and qualifications outside football, Kelly never had a plan B. \u201cI actually didn\u2019t, I\u00a0won\u2019t lie. I just always wanted to be a footballer, and that was my overconfidence.\u201d Then she remembers that she did have another job. \u201cI worked for one day,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI went to work with one of my friends, at\u00a0an Olly Murs concert. We sold merchandise, and I was, like \u2026 I don\u2019t want to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

She describes her parents as \u201chard-working people\u201d. Her father fits big machinery, she says, then turns to Moore. \u201cIs that a rigger?\u201d Her mum worked at the same nursery school that Kelly attended and, later, worked with children with additional needs. Neither of them drove, which meant that getting their daughter to training sessions involved a lot of early morning buses and trains. When she was 16, Kelly got the call to train with the Arsenal first team, then known as Arsenal Ladies. She had her first professional contact by 18. The money was so bad that her father had to help her out with her living costs. \u201cI was on a professional contract, but my dad would pay me each week so that I could get to training and I could actually live,\u201d she says. It is a sign of how much the women\u2019s game has grown, and how quickly. And that was less than 10 years ago? \u201cYeah. 2017, I\u2019d say?\u201d Her salary is not disclosed, but in 2023 Forbes estimated her annual club earnings to be \u00a3400,000.<\/p>\n

Kelly with Hannah Hampton after winning the final of the 2025 Euros against Spain in July. Photograph: Sports Press Photo\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

She was playing for Everton when she met Moore, a groundsman there. I want to talk about him, I say, but is it awkward if he\u2019s sitting next to you? \u201cNo!\u201d she beams. \u201cIt\u2019s fine! I always speak about Scott, whether I\u2019m with him, or not.\u201d At the time, Kelly was in rehab, recovering from a torn syndesmosis and subsequent ankle surgery. \u201cI was coming out of the indoor astro [pitch], and Scott was walking behind me. I held the door open for him, and that was our first interaction.\u201d She laughs. \u201cWhen I say interaction, he said, \u2018Thank you.\u2019 And I said, \u2018It\u2019s OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore plucked up the courage to slide into Kelly\u2019s DMs, but the message languished in her requests. Eventually, she saw it, realised they had mutual friends, and they started to talk. Moore took her to Ikea for their first date, and she asked him to stay and help her build the furniture. \u201cI remember sending a picture to my mum of Scott putting the drawers together,\u201d she says. Their story sounds impossibly sweet. \u201cWe\u2019d go and get milkshakes, or just have a drive. We used to go to just\u00a0watch the planes come in at Liverpool airport. Even\u00a0now, we\u2019re inseparable.\u201d They got married in July 2024. A week before their first wedding anniversary, Kelly was playing for England against Sweden in the Euros, in that hellish quarter-final match, though she says it was her favourite of the tournament. She wore\u00a0custom-made shin pads, with her wedding photos on them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moore works with Kelly\u2019s management team now. \u201cHonestly, I love it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s funny, because when we text about work we don\u2019t put any kisses. It\u2019s\u00a0just direct, blunt. Then we talk about something else, it\u2019s just two kisses, after every text. So the balance is amazing. It allows us to spend a lot of time together, which, in football, is crazy, so you have to make the most of that.\u201d Who does he support? \u201cScott\u2019s an Evertonian, so it was nice that I played for the club,\u201d she says. And when you\u2019re playing for Arsenal, does that change anything? \u201cWell, no. To be honest, at our wedding, in his speech, he said the best thing to come out of Everton was our relationship,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI hold a close place in my heart for Everton, especially with the happiness that it has brought me in my relationship. But I\u2019m a QPR fan, so I don\u2019t celebrate too much, either!\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly\u2019s fellow Lioness Ella Toone tells a\u00a0story about when she first realised she might be famous. \u201cI got papped eating a pasty in Tyldesley,\u201d she said, in a moment that went viral<\/a>. What about Kelly? After the 2022 Euros, she remembers taking her nieces and nephews to Legoland, where people kept stopping her, asking for pictures. \u201cMy nieces and nephews were \u00a0like, \u2018Chloe, is this gonna happen all the time?\u2019 They were so confused.\u201d Are they excited that you\u2019re well-known? \u201cThey just see me as their auntie! They don\u2019t see me as Chloe, the footballer.\u201d But her nephew sometimes texts her if he\u2019s playing EA Sports FC (the\u00a0video game that used to be called Fifa). \u201cHe\u2019ll get me, and he\u2019s, like, \u2018Look, Chloe, who I\u2019ve got in my team!\u2019 But I don\u2019t know if they realise how huge the women\u2019s game has got.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the women\u2019s game grows in popularity, so does the scrutiny. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely misogyny when women are successful. People don\u2019t like women being successful. People don\u2019t like women being in an environment where maybe you don\u2019t think we should be,\u201d says Kelly. Fire and ice, they say, but that\u2019s the fire, right there. \u201cWe are exactly where we should be, and we\u2019re here to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does she think that female players are held to a\u00a0higher standard? She says she\u2019s not sure, to be honest, and that plenty of male players are on the receiving end of harsh criticism and comments. But the pressures are a little different. \u201cI think as women players, we try to be the best, inspiring young girls, inspiring women to take a step into something that they enjoy and something that they can be great at.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s different is that you don\u2019t often get comments about male players\u2019 appearances. \u201cFor sure. If you comment on if I\u2019m good or bad at football, that\u2019s fine. That\u2019s your opinion.\u201d She has to listen to the opinions of the staff every day. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to comment on me as a human being, it\u2019s a little bit different, but I am myself, and I\u2019ll be myself wherever I\u00a0go. For young girls that maybe are a little more insecure, that\u2019s when it\u2019s not nice.\u201d Still, she tries to see it from another angle. \u201cBut I guess it\u2019s a sign that we are being more successful than they wanted us to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being around my family so much, I\u2019d love to have one of my own Photograph: David Titlow\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

A recent BBC investigation<\/a> found that over the course of a single weekend in the Premier League and WSL, more than 2,000 abusive messages, including death and rape threats, were sent to players and managers on social media. \u201cYou obviously see it,\u201d says Kelly, on trolling, which she struggles to understand, adding that she doesn\u2019t watch tennis, but that doesn\u2019t mean she\u2019s about to start slating tennis players. \u201cI\u2019m not going troll you for doing your job. It just doesn\u2019t make sense to me. I\u2019d love to be in a world full of full of peace and happiness. But, yeah,\u201d she sighs, \u201cwe\u2019re a million miles off that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly has started to notice that, as well as young girls,\u00a0more boys are looking up to female players now. \u00a0\u201cI meet so many that say, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re my idol, you\u2019re my favourite player.\u2019 Which is amazing, because \u00a0actually,\u00a0we\u2019ve changed something. You\u2019re actually changing the mindsets of those young boys, and as they grow up they will then teach their kids that this is normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly has a lot of plans outside football. She\u2019s becoming a more regular fixture on red carpets, joining the fashion set at the pink-themed British Museum Ball in October<\/a>, wearing see-through bejewelled couture at the Harper\u2019s Bazaar Women of the Year Awards at the start of November<\/a>. She\u2019d like to move into fashion herself and wants to show more of her personality off the pitch. \u201cAnd I would love to have a family. For me, being around my family so much, I\u2019d love to have one of my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she isn\u2019t thinking too hard about that just yet, because there\u2019s something else on her mind. \u201cI\u2019ll know when the time is right, and right now I have a World Cup to get to and to win. So my focus is to make sure that I\u2019m at my best to represent England.\u201d And how is she feeling about the World Cup? She smiles. \u201cI don\u2019t look too far ahead. Who knows what the journey looks like to get there?\u201d But, equally, she can\u2019t help herself. \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0hungry,\u201d she says.\u201d<\/p>\n