Lucy Bronze: on Fifa, a summer in Colombia with refugees and Chelsea’s season ahead
Lucy Bronze, the Chelsea defender, spoke on Tuesday at a press conference before Chelsea’s 5-2 victory over Real Sociedad in the first leg of their Champions League qualifier, reflecting on a summer she spent working with refugees in Colombia and saying “it feels like now is a good time for players to speak up.” She reiterated criticism of Fifa leadership by sharing a post from Mikaël Silvestre and earlier backed the threat of a European boycott of Fifa competitions as “for the future of the game and not just for me today and tomorrow.”
Bronze described a restless mind and a late diagnosis of ADHD and autism, saying she cannot sit still and does not listen to music or podcasts: “Someone recently asked me what I listen to in the car and someone else jumped in and was like: ‘Lucy has her own podcast going on in her own head.’ I don’t listen to music, I don’t listen to podcasts, I just have a million thoughts going on.” She said walking her dog Nala is her main form of relaxation and outlined her off-field commitments including businesses, PFA boards, and work for Fifpro and Uefa. Bronze and Kim Little sit on the PFA players’ board and she described the emotional drain of development work even while enjoying it and feeling energised by multiple projects.
On governance and Fifa, Bronze said she had been vocal about Gianni Infantino’s presidency and supported players using their voices despite potential sporting consequences, repeating the line she gave to the New Zealand Herald: “It’s for the future of the game and not just for me today and tomorrow.” She explained sharing a social-media post by Mikaël Silvestre — who sits on Fifa’s players’ voice panel — with the message “change is necessary”, adding: “The football comes first no matter what, no matter who’s in charge, who’s playing … and it feels like now is a good time for players to speak up.”
Bronze said the gap in the calendar this summer allowed her to make a long-planned trip to Colombia to work with refugees, an engagement she had wanted to make for four years after being asked to help fundraising for the UNHCR during Covid and remaining involved since. She said Sarina Wiegman had previously blocked travel before tournaments because of concerns about jet lag, and that the trip was therefore delayed until this summer. Bronze cited UNHCR figures, saying Colombia is facing a humanitarian crisis and has about 2.8 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants and seven million people who are internally displaced.
Describing her time on the ground as “crazy”, Bronze said the visit exposed her to children’s resilience and the scale of need while also being emotionally and physically tiring. She said: “I guess now that there’s been the earthquake in Venezuela people know a bit more, but it’s generally not spoken about as much because it’s Venezuela to Colombia compared to like, Ukrainians to wealthier countries like England or Germany.” Bronze recounted the distress of hearing children plead “Take me with you” when she left.
Bronze brought shirts to the communities she visited, including shirts from Naomi Girma, and described meeting a refugee girl who captained a boys’ team. “There was a refugee girl there who was the captain of this football team which was all boys,” Bronze said, adding that she had told the girl Nay’s [Girma’s] story, shown pictures of Nay playing for America and given her the shirt. She said the girl’s face “just lit up” and that seeing someone whose family had rebuilt their lives helped the child to imagine her own future: “This girl was so excited because while it’s not someone in the exact same situation, it’s someone whose family had to rebuild their lives and she could see her own life in it and how amazing she’s doing now.”
Turning to club matters, Bronze said Chelsea’s squad change and the emergence of younger players under Sonia Bompastor have followed a high-energy pre-season. She praised Bompastor’s work behind the scenes on staffing and described a difficult transition as the club balanced maintaining what makes Chelsea dominant with the need to evolve: “There’s been a hard transition and balance to find what makes Chelsea so good and so dominant and so ‘Chelsea’, while also evolving and adapting, because that’s what you have to do.” Reflecting on last season’s form, Bronze said: “The first year everything kind of went smoothly. As things started to change, we were so desperate to win because we are Chelsea – we need to win – but at the same time, it was about [how] we do that while evolving and I think that’s maybe what we struggled with in the second half of last season.”
Bronze noted off-field changes at Chelsea, including the decision for all Women’s Super League games to be played at Stamford Bridge and cup matches to be held at Kingsmeadow in Norbiton, south-west London, with the first WSL fixture at Stamford Bridge scheduled against Aston Villa next Saturday. She described the move as “a statement of intent on the future of Chelsea’s women’s team” and said the club must “dominate in every aspect,” citing ambitions to build beyond six consecutive league titles and to win the Champions League while continuing to grow the team, the style of play and the stadium to match that ambition.