Think back to the Lionesses’ historic European Championships last summer, where they achieved what their male counterparts could not: they won. Is there an image that comes to mind?
Of course there is. It could only be Chloe Kelly – the now 25-year-old Manchester City striker – whipping off her England shirt at Wembley and lassoing it in the air as she sprints across the pitch wearing only a Nike sports bra, shorts and boots, having scored the winning goal against Germany. It was the defining image of the Euros, a triumphant display of empowered athleticism that was always destined for the history books.
“Looking back, I didn’t realise how powerful it would be,” she tells GLAMOUR. “We changed mindsets for so many people that maybe thought of the women’s game as, ‘Oh, it’s just women playing football,’ whereas no, it’s just ‘football’.”
Quite apart from her obvious on-field skills, Chloe is fast becoming one of the most recognisable faces in English football. From presenting at the Brit Awards in February and working with Nike Innovation on a range of women’s sportswear, the England forward has modelled for a high-profile Calvin Klein underwear campaign in June and, most recently, starred alongside her fellow Lionesses in a Marks & Spencer campaign.
All eyes are now on Chloe Kelly to deliver the heroics at this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, which kicked off last week in Australia and New Zealand. GLAMOUR’s Lucy Morgan caught up with Chloe to talk about overcoming sexism in the game, why she’s calling for more diversity in the England women’s squad and how she turned her girlhood dreams into a reality…
It’s approaching 4pm and Chloe Kelly is racing along the Champs-Élysées to make our interview on time – or so I imagine. But when her face appears on my laptop screen, it bears no traces of stress from the hectic city break she’s had in Paris, where she’s been speaking about women’s sport at the Nike House of Innovation alongside England manager Sarina Wiegman. Wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and grey tracksuit bottoms (both Nike, naturally), Chloe’s icy blonde hair hangs loose behind her shoulders, in contrast to her signature high ponytail and adhesive tape headband she wraps around her temple on match days. “I make my headband before every game,” she tells me. Is there a rhyme or reason behind the tape, I wonder? “It's probably more [of a] habit,” Chloe explains. “I pick the colour based on how I feel that day and go with it.”
As we settle into the interview, I notice that Chloe's answers are sometimes short, always sincere and often wouldn’t feel out of place during a pitchside debrief with sports media outlets. But it’s clear that from an early age, Chloe has learned to let football do the talking. An hour before our interview is due to start, the Lionesses’ official Instagram account shares a video of Chloe stepping up to take the winning penalty at Wembley Stadium during the first-ever Women’s Finalissima (a match between the winners of the CONMEBOL Copa América and the UEFA European Championships) earlier in the month, with the caption, “She’s as cold as ice.”
I ask Chloe what she makes of this characterisation. “Yeah,” she agrees, seamlessly bringing it back to the football. “Stepping up to the penalty, I had a lot of confidence in myself. Once you back yourself, then I think the chances are for you.”
When not playing for England, Chloe is on the pitch as one of the star players of Manchester City WFC.
The youngest of seven siblings, Chloe cut her teeth in the football cages on Windmill Park estate in West London with her five older brothers – Jack, Daniel, Ryan, Jamie and Martin – who “never made it easy” and “wanted to challenge [her] to be better.” It’s fair to say they succeeded, as she adds, “I definitely wouldn’t be the player I am today if it had been an easy ride in those cages.”
While Chloe had her brothers’ backing, being the only girl on the pitch was too much for some to stomach. “I remember going to play a football tournament with my brothers,” she starts. “I played really well in the first game and then, after that, I was told, ’You can’t come back any more.’” To add insult, the tournament organisers informed the young Chloe of their decision via her brothers. Were they afraid of telling a young girl – to her face – that she couldn’t play football? Perhaps they should have been.
“I think they didn’t want me to come back because after a few minutes of skinning up the boys, maybe it got a little bit embarrassing,” Chloe smiles. “It was probably a compliment to me, actually.”
The fallacy that women and girls shouldn’t play football – which sadly persists in the Instagram comments of many posts about the women’s game – is baked into England’s history. In 1921, the Football Association banned women from playing on official grounds, arguing that the sport was “quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged”. The ban was lifted in 1971 after 50 years, having effectively relegated an entire gender off the pitch. The ramifications were clearly still being felt by the time Chloe Kelly was a footy-obsessed teenager ten years ago.
“It was always a dream to play football,” she tells me, “but believing in that dream was quite difficult because there were no professional female players.” If boys in her school year wanted to see themselves represented in professional football, they need only have tuned into Match Of The Day at the weekend. Meanwhile, Chloe would travel to the scattered sidelines of low-capacity football grounds to see her heroes, who often balanced their football careers alongside full-time jobs. Indeed, Chloe was 20 years old – and had been playing professionally for two years – by the time England had a fully professional women’s football league in 2018.
“There was never someone I could look up to as being a professional footballer. Only a man,” Chloe explains. “So when I turned 18, to be a professional football player was a dream come true.”
Chloe’s public profile has rocketed since scoring a late winner at the European Championships 2022 to beat Germany 2-1, with a growing fanbase – and a 563k-strong Instagram following – to keep happy.
While the Lionesses have a dedicated following over on TikTok (the hashtag #lionesses has 744.5M views – only a minority of which accompany clips of actual wild cats), Chloe is wary of seeing herself on the ‘For You’ page, particularly when people share old videos of her sustaining a serious injury back in 2021. “I just scroll past that, because it’s not something I want to see. Why do people do that? They post videos with Titanic music of me getting injured.”
Chloe experienced an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury – rupturing the ligament in the knee that joins the thigh and shinbone – towards the end of Manchester City’s 2020/21 Women’s Super League season during a match against Birmingham City. Having already scored two goals, Chloe was eyeing up her third before colliding with Birmingham City defender Rebecca Holloway and falling to the floor in agony. She went from challenging for a place at the Tokyo Olympics to learning how to walk again.
Although she’s previously spoken about the impact this physical injury had on her mental health, making her feel “worthless”, Chloe now sees the injury in a different light. “It was tough, but you learn a lot about yourself in those moments, and it’s an opportunity to get better in the gym and learn about your body – where you can push your body to.” In recovery, she had to focus on how her body worked, rather than thinking about how it looked: “I don’t really think about [body image], to be honest. I train to be a better athlete.”
She continues, “I train my body to perform, not to look good. But looking good is always a bonus. I think being able to perform at the highest level [involves] making sure I’m eating right, drinking right and sleeping well, as well as making sure I’m doing all my recovery possible to perform on the pitch.
“Of course,” Chloe adds, “You like to look good and play well.” Off the pitch, she’s also making a name for herself in fashion. Just weeks after our interview, Chloe is unveiled in Calvin Klein’s latest underwear campaign. “I like to be myself within fashion,” she explains, and I don’t try to force it too much. I’ll just be me and what I like, I wear. I don’t really aspire to other people’s style.”
Forget “cold as ice”; Chloe Kelly is just plain cool. And she’s passionate about getting more women involved in sports, “Being able to have women role models for young girls is huge.”
The Lionesses’ extraordinary efforts have extended well beyond the pitch, from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledging in March to provide girls with equal access to football in schools (prompted by an open letter signed by all 23 players in the England women’s winning squad) to the Football Association’s decision to switch the colour of the Lionesses’ shorts from white to blue in April, after several squad members expressed concerns about wearing white during their periods. “To have blue shorts now is very important for us,” says Chloe. “It’s very important that women feel comfortable playing football.”
Chloe is acutely aware of the barriers her predecessors – including her footballing hero, Kelly Smith, who is England’s second-highest goalscorer – overcame. “I’m incredibly grateful for those players that came before us,” she says. “It wasn’t easy for those players, but they pushed people to have those difficult conversations.”
Is there more pressure on women in sports to excel? I ask. “Yes, definitely,” she agrees. “I think women have to be excellent to be taken seriously, but with that comes incredible things because last summer, everyone was so invested before we even won.”
So, what’s the next big fight for equality in women’s football?
“One of the biggest battles we’ve faced is diversity in the women’s game,” says Chloe, referencing the lack of Black women and women of colour at the highest level of women’s football in England. Indeed, when the World Cup squad was officially announced three months later, only two Black women – Chelsea’s Jess Carter and Lauren James – were included.
“There are changes being made to have more diversity in the squad, but that’s not going to happen overnight,” Chloe reflects. When I ask if she can elaborate on these changes, Chloe highlights the FA’s Youth Women’s Talent Pathway, a scheme that identifies talented young women (aged 14-20) as future senior England Lionesses, with a focus on diversity and inclusion. Chloe has previously visited a “talent identification camp” attended by girls from across the UK, who were referred by their coaches, PE teachers, and even family and friends.
“I think that it’s incredible to have so many talented girls, and we got to see them training and getting picked up by England coaches.”
Will these schemes meaningfully improve Black and women of colour’s representation within the sport? Only time will tell. For now, our attention turns to the openness around sexuality within women’s football. There are plenty of gay and queer women playing in the Women’s Super League, many of whom also play for their countries. It shouldn’t be noteworthy, but given that there are precisely zero ‘out’ gay men playing in the Premier League, it feels like a cause for celebration.
As Chloe puts it, “In women’s football, you’re allowed to just be yourself – fans and players. I feel like we’re together as one to make change in society and in the game.”
While I’ve got Chloe talking about equality, I ask what she thinks about the rumbling controversy over maternity pay in women’s football, sparked by Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, the Icelandic footballer who successfully sued her former club Lyon for failing to pay her full wages during her pregnancy.
Chloe points to her Manchester City teammate and fellow Lioness Demi Stokes, who welcomed her first child, Harlen, with her fiance, Katie Harrington, last summer. When I ask if Manchester City is supportive of new mothers, Chloe agrees, adding, “Demi comes in with Harlen on some days for breakfast, which is really nice, actually, quite refreshing. It’s a new face in the group, a little baby, and he’s all of our little nephews. It’s great when he comes in, it puts a smile on everyone’s faces and makes the day even better.”
Another hot topic concerning equality in women’s football is the fight for equal pay. Last year, FIFA allocated $440million in prize money for the 2022 Men’s World Cup in Qatar. By comparison, there’s $152million available at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand – approximately a third of what the men received. Indeed, Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, has recently announced a target of equal prize money for men and women at World Cups by 2027. I’m keen to hear what Chloe makes about all this. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it, to be honest,” Chloe says. As ever, she focuses on what’s directly under her control – namely her mindset and technical ability – as a vehicle for change, “It’s about us having to perform on the pitch. And our performances on the pitch will hopefully change mindsets.”
Chloe doesn’t dwell too much on the differences between men’s and women’s football. In fact, I get the impression she’d rather we just call it ‘football’ and leave it at that.
Five days later, I’m readying myself for a quick chat with Chloe, this time in person, who’s travelled from Paris back to Manchester for her GLAMOUR cover shoot.
After reintroducing myself, we ease into animated chatter about the upcoming shoot. Three coffees later, I pop into hair and makeup, where Chloe is sitting peacefully inside a small, crowded hotel room bustling with stylists, agents and journalists; she’s the embodiment of calm within the storm. We’ve got a lot to catch up on, including the news that Leah Williamson, who captained the Lionesses to a European victory, has been ruled out of the World Cup after picking up an ACL injury.
“It’s obviously very sad. She’s a leader in the group, our captain,” Chloe reflects.
Many top players, including England’s Beth Mead, the Netherlands’ Vivianne Miedema, and USWNT’s Christen Press, have all also been ruled out of the World Cup due to ACL injuries, which is symptomatic of a wider issue within the sport.
Female footballers are up to six times more likely to suffer an ACL injury than males. Little is known about why, but some theories point to the fact that most women footballers wear boots designed for men, and hormone changes during the menstrual cycle may cause increased looseness in joints. “It’s something that is very common in the women’s game and, of course, a lot of research can be done to see why this is happening,” notes Chloe. However, she adds, “I think the mentality can change on ACLs. It’s so much negative energy,” alluding to the popular preconception that ACL injuries can be (and often are) career-ending for athletes.
Returning to Leah Williamson’s situation, Chloe says, “It’s an injury I’ve overcome myself and I believe she has the right mentality. She’s a great, great player, so she will definitely be missed, but it’s the mentality that gets you through these types of injuries.”
As we’re on the subject of self-care, I ask how she protects her mental health. “Getting my headspace right is very important,” she explains. And one of the ways she achieves this is through meditation, specifically practising breathing techniques on the Headspace meditation app. “It’s worked for me massively, before bed especially,” she explains. These techniques also see her through high-pressure moments, such as taking penalties, “Going through my mind in the lead up to taking the penalty [at the Women’s Finalissima in April] I think ‘just breathe’. As I was stepping up, that’s all I did, I was breathing. And I just thought, “I’m going to score.”
When she’s not playing football, Chloe tells me that she unwinds by spending quality time with her boyfriend, Scott, watching foodie TikTok videos and working through colouring-in books.
While I leave her to enjoy the rest of her GLAMOUR cover shoot, I wonder what teenage Chloe would have made of all this, and does she have any advice for her younger self? “Be yourself in every moment possible and just work hard,” she says. “You never know when someone else is watching.”
In the Lionesses' first game of the World Cup, they held off Haiti last Saturday for a hard-fought 1-0 win. Chloe Kelly and the team return to the pitch on Friday 28 July to face Denmark. And yes, we’ll all be watching.
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