“That celebration definitely wasn’t planned, just in the moment it felt right,” she said. “It could have been seen as a negative, a woman taking off her shirt at Wembley, but no, it was me celebrating a huge moment in my career [after 11 months out due to an ACL injury] to achieve great things alongside so many great players in my team. It was an incredible summer. I smile every time I think about that moment.” She blocked out any sexist backlash “quite easily”, she said. “I don’t really use social media too much, of course you expect some negative comments, being an athlete it’s very common. It’s obviously not right but we accept it because you do the job that you do.” The positivity around the women’s game “overshadowed” the negative comments now though. “Of course, they’ll always be people stepping in our way but I think that’s always been the case and women in sport, [we’re] changing mindsets now and the change that we’ve seen has been incredible,” Kelly said. The fact that the women’s game is compared to the men’s is “exciting” too – “Because there’s no barrier to what we can achieve as women”. Growing up, there were no women’s football matches shown on TV. “We didn’t ever see professional female football players so it was hard to believe you could achieve that dream of being one. It wasn’t unless you went to a game that you could really see the women’s game,” she explained. But a lot has changed in just a few years.The Euros final was watched by over 365 million people globally, according to UEFA. “It’s an amazing feeling, because you go and step out at Wembley and see so many people there, and it just makes you makes you smile, because not so long ago, the women’s game, you couldn’t even watch it on the TV. It’s come such a long way.”
The youngest of seven, including five older brothers, Kelly grew up to be very competitive.“I always wanted to win, I’m a very bad loser,” she said.“Whether that be against boys or girls, I saw the challenge and always took it. “I always played with the older boys and and they never made it easy for me.Which was great, I don’t think I’d be in the position I am today without that challenge. I was treated like one of the boys and wasn’t treated any differently to anyone else that was playing football with them. I wasn’t singled out
“I think it’s where I got my physicality from, and also my creativity.”
She played on a boys’ football team in school. “As soon as we would step onto the pitch, there would be little remarks and little comments. ‘They’ve got a girl on their team, they mustn’t be good’, and then after [I’d] come away with player of the tournament.
“It’s frustrating but we can only control what we can.”
The huge gender pay gap, of course, is still a real issue.“The change we want to see is equal opportunities for women and equal facilities for women, once we’ve got those, we can start moving forwards in those [pay] conversations. “For us, we do our job on the pitch, we train like the men, we perform to the same metric, we train the same hours as the men.
“I think we’re heading in the right direction to change mindsets.”
Chloe Kelly is backing the new ‘For the Bold In Everyone’ campaign by Doritos, who have pledged to support grassroots clubs with new kits to encourage more women and girls onto the pitch.
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