Chelsea manager admits to secret romantic relationship with assistant coach

Chelsea female team head coach Sonia Bompastor has revealed that she has been in a 13-year romantic relationship with her former team-mate and coaching assistant in her new autobiography.

Bompastor arrived at Chelsea with high expectations this summer following the departure of heavily decorated former manager Emma Hayes, bringing with her a strong Champions League-winning pedigree from her stint at Olympique Lyon – and her coaching partner Camille Abily.

Both Bompastor and Abily played together at Lyon during their career before setting up as a managerial team, with Bompastor taking the lead and overseeing glittering stint at Lyon featuring three league titles, the Coupe de France, and a Champions League trophy.

Sonia BOMPASTOR coach of Lyon and Camille ABILY as coach of Lyon (Photo by Romain Biard/Icon Sport via Getty Images)

But in her autobiography, A Life of Football, published in France on Wednesday, Bompastor shared that she had achieved her accomplishments with Abily by her side romantically as well as professionally.

The memoir also reveals that the pair share four children together, now aged between three and nine-years-old.

In an interview with L’Equipe ahead of the book’s publication date, Bompastor admitted that her secret had been ‘a heavy one’ to keep.

‘Revealing my life together with Camille, our couple, after – as I say in the book – these thirteen years of lying, is still a subject on which today we are not entirely comfortable,’ Bompastor said. ‘We are rather discreet and we like to have a completely normal life.

‘Finally, we realised that having lied for 13 years is a heavy secret to keep. With hindsight and our different experiences, we say to ourselves that we should have revealed it from the start.’

Sonia Bompastor Manager of Chelsea Women and Camille ABILY ass coach of Chelsea (Photo by Crystal Pix/MB Media/Getty Images)

‘Abily, who was also interviewed, shared that the decision to keep their relationship discreetly under wraps had something to do with their public profile at the start.

Both Bompastor and Abily featured at Montpellier before moving to Lyon as players, starring in an all-conquering side which took in six league titles.

The couple also represented France internationally, with Bompastor earning 156 and Abily 170 caps respectively.

‘There is modesty, self-acceptance,’ Abily added. ‘Then, we were still two well-known players. We were already associated a lot on a lot of things.

‘These are not subjects that I necessarily like to discuss. I think it’s a self-acceptance already. Everyone around us, our children, know, there’s no problem. But I’m not going to be the first to tell someone who doesn’t know. And yet, we were really lucky, it went really well.’

At Chelsea this season, Bompastor and Abily have built upon Chelsea’s legacy of success under Hayes.

‘Camille isn’t my wife at work,’ she continued. ‘Camille is my duo, my partner. We know each other very well, we complement each other very well in qualities that as a result, we’re very effective at what we do.’

Bompastor and Abily will challenge for their first trophy in Chelsea’s colours at the start of next month when they play Manchester City in the League Cup final.