Chelsea Women has become the first Women’s Super League club to pay for its players to freeze their eggs and undergo fertility treatment.
The fund amassed by the club, reported to be worth at least GBP 189,000 is enough to pay for the entire squad to freeze their eggs, according to The Observer.
This is the most significant investment into female fertilty treatment by a women’s sports outfit in the United Kingdom.
All members of the Chelsea squad will be allowed to use a fixed amount from a fund at the Fertility Plus clinic in London every season. As it stands, the cost of egg freezing at this clinic is GBP 6,995. Storage costs GBP 425 a year. The fund is not restrictive and also allows usage for IVF which is priced at GBP 13,750 at the clinic.
The fund can also be used for gynaecological interventions like smear tests and contraception and for consultation on menstruation.
How does egg freezing work?
How long does the process take: Three weeks
Method: Women inject themselves daily for two weeks. A hospitalisation follows where women are sedated and the eggs are harvested and frozen. They need to be thawed and injected with sperm to create embryos later.
Has any athlete used this technique? Yes. England women’s cricket team captain Nat Sciver-Brunt froze her eggs in the past. She missed a T20I fixture against Pakistan in 2024 to freeze her eggs, but returned to play the following week.
The Observer also reports that the Royal Spanish Football Federation is expected to announce a partnership this week with a fertility clinic to fund egg freezing for its World Cup-winning team. The move, however, has met some resistance.
Ana Peleteiro-Compaoré Brión, a Spanish Olympic triple jumper, questioned the motive behind the initiative saying administrative bodies were paying to ensure motherhood doesn’t hinder playing careers.
“The problem obviously isn’t freezing eggs,” she said in a post on Instagram. “The problem is: why does the institution these women work for have an interest in financing them to delay their motherhood? And here there’s a problem that for me changes absolutely everything. Is this measure intended to make it easier for women to be mothers, or is it intended to make it easier for them not to be while they’re playing?”
“Instead of adapting the sports structure so that motherhood fits within it, we adapt women’s reproductive timing so they continue to fit the structure. And there’s still something that worries me even more. Today, freezing eggs is an option. But when that option is offered to you by the institution your professional career depends on, at what point can the option start to become an expectation? Because let’s imagine the next step: if you could freeze eggs, why did you decide to get pregnant right now? And there we have a huge problem.”
Dr Amit Shah, consultant gynaecologist and the co-founder of Fertility Plus, Chelsea’s partner in this initiative, has clarified that the footballers were not being asked to freeze their eggs but were being given the option to do so. Shah said that the club will not be directing when players can and can’t receive treatment.
Published on Sep 06, 2026
