Egg freezing becoming more commonplace in women's sports

Chelsea Football Club will fund egg freezing and fertility treatment for its female players, becoming the first Women's Super League club to do so.

The club has set up a fertility fund worth at least £189,000, thought to be the largest investment in fertility treatment by a UK women's sports team. The entire 27-person squad can use the money for egg freezing and IVF, as well as cervical screening, contraceptive care and menstrual health consultations.

'Elite sport asks a lot of women during the very years when fertility matters most, yet it's a conversation the game has rarely had,' said Drs Amit Shah and Anil Gudi, co-founders of Fertility Plus, where the players will receive treatment through the fund.

Similar initiatives are emerging internationally. This month, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) announced a partnership with Madrid's Tambre clinic, offering fertility care and egg freezing to eligible national team players, referees and employees.

'We are very happy … to have one more option to decide how and when to choose to become a mother,' said Spanish player Olga Carmona. Her teammate Patri Guijarro added: 'We feel we've been listened to. It's important that female athletes feel they don't have to choose between their professional and personal lives.'

Calls for stronger fertility support are growing in other sports too. England women's rugby union captain Megan Jones recently advocated for the 'Red Roses' players to have access to fertility support and egg freezing, while the Women's Tennis Association announced in 2025 that players who wish to take time out to have a baby, receive fertility treatment or undergo egg freezing would have their rankings protected.

However, Spain's Comisiones Obreras trade union responded to the RFEF announcement, saying that the priority should remain on protection during pregnancy and work-life balance. Similarly, Spanish Olympic triple jumper Ana Peleteiro-Compaoré Brión commented:

'Instead of adapting the sports structure so that motherhood fits within it, we adapt women's reproductive timing,' she said in an Instagram post. '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?'

Earlier this year, the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority cautioned that egg freezing does not guarantee a future baby, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has recently published an impact paper on the subject (see BioNews 1356).