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Despite completing a treble of major trophies without losing a single domestic game in her first season managing in England, the Chelsea head coach, Sonia Bompastor, was still not fully satisfied as she set her sights on adding a first European title to Chelsea’s honours list.
Bompastor’s team, who were 3-0 winners against Manchester United at Wembley to finish their 30-match domestic campaign unbeaten, were outclassed by Barcelona in the Women’s Champions League semi-finals in April. They celebrated the club’s sixth Women’s FA Cup in 10 years on Sunday, but Bompastor said: “We are super happy but we didn’t win the Champions League which was also one of our goals.
“Some of the people there on the pitch were already mentioning ‘we are missing the Champions League’, so that’s who we are, that’s our goal. I want to make sure we are all able to achieve that goal, to win the Champions League with the club.
“Everyone is saying ‘maybe Chelsea will run away from the pack’ in the league in England, but our goal for us is to compete against the best teams in Europe, so it’s nice to have this domestic treble but we want to make sure, in the future, and hopefully next season, we are able to compete against the best teams in Europe.”
Chelsea have now won 18 major women’s trophies – all of which have come in a dominant spell since 2015 – and this year they have appeared further ahead domestically than ever, winning the title by their largest margin of 12 points. Bompastor, though, does not want their rivals to weaken, saying: “We want that competition, to produce our best. We want to make sure we’re top of the league and bring everyone else with us – this is what we want to achieve – but we need the other teams to still invest and come with us.”
The gap in financial investment between Chelsea and United in terms of budgets was symbolised up in the director boxes at Wembley on Sunday as the champions were watched by Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly, whereas Sir Jim Ratcliffe was not present at the final for United, for the second season running. There was still a significant delegation of senior United figures at the stadium – not least the chief executive, Omar Berrada – but the absence of Ratcliffe drew a disappointed reaction across social media.
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Asked about Ratcliffe’s non-attendance the United head coach, Marc Skinner, said: “In all honesty, I don’t know why Jim wasn’t here so I can’t give you that answer, but we were really well represented. Omar’s up there, we’ve got the Glazer family in massive support, and Jason [Wilcox] as well, so I know we [you] are trying to find a story, but we’ve just lost a final. Those are the people I kind of deal with every day, so they’re the people, they need to see that [match] for us to be able to look at what we need to be able to do to close a growing gap in finance, that Chelsea have, but I feel like we were really well-supported by the club.
“The reality is, it’s the investment in the team that needs to happen, it’s not whether you’re visible. As long as our team is being invested in. We also need to close that gap. I don’t know the reason why Jim wasn’t here but the club is still showing support.”
Chelsea were also supported at Wembley by their new minority owner Alexis Ohanian, husband of the tennis great Serena Williams, who bought a 10% stake in the women’s club for £20m this week. At half-time, the Reddit co-founder told the BBC: “These are the queens of global soccer and they’ve got the trophy case to prove it, so I feel so humbled. The sky’s the limit and what I love about this club is, this club is unapologetically ambitious. This will be a billion-dollar franchise one day.”
