The last two seasons have brought much success to Chelsea Women with trophies galore for Emma Hayes’ players. While the Blues picked up a domestic treble as well as a Champions League Runner’s Up medal during the 2020-21 campaign, the previous season saw them retain the Women’s Super League title and the FA Cup to finish strong in 2022.
Being one of the founding clubs for the WSL back in 2011, the Imperial Fields faithful have seen their side develop into one of the household names in the game. Having made Australian international Sam Kerr their marquee signing in 2020, the forward truly repaid the club’s faith by netting 20 goals in the WSL season last year.
With consistent success and the ability to attract top stars to London, Chelsea Women have a strong fanbase now in Europe backing the team just as well as for the club’s men’s side.
In many ways, Chelsea have now joined the likes of Barcelona and Lyon who have both the men’s and women’s team competing at the very top of their respective competitions and ultimately, has aided in the rise in popularity of the women’s game amongst the footballing community.
But these progressions do have their own minor setbacks with some football fans still not giving women’s football the respect it deserves.
The latest example of this came through a troll online as Sky Sports announced the completion of Chelsea Women’s new signing, Kadeisha Buchanan on Instagram.
Buchanan was an integral part of Lyon’s women’s team since 2017 and has picked up 5 Champions League titles to go along with the 5 domestic titles won in France. The Canadian player is now set to play for the Blues and will now wear the iconic No. 26 jersey previously popularized by John Terry for the men’s side.
As Sky Sports quite joyously announced the arrival of such a champion in England, one ignorant fan took to the comments section to disrespect the Canadian international’s career and popularity by simply writing “Who?”.
But the Sky Sports admin was in no mood to take prisoners and replied, “it says right there, Kadeisha Buchanan, five-time Champions League winner. Who are you?”.
The quick response was greatly received by the online footballing community as the Sky Sports admin managed to win the support of many fans for ensuring that the women’s game gets the respect it deserves. Perhaps this very public show of support for the game would be a lesson for the many doubters of women’s football.