{"id":2710,"date":"2026-05-01T02:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T02:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=2710"},"modified":"2026-05-01T02:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T02:33:06","slug":"chelsea-captain-bright-announces-her-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=2710","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea captain Bright announces her retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Chelsea captain Millie Bright has announced her retirement from football with immediate effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old defender, who joined the Blues from Doncaster Belles in 2015, made 294 appearances for the club and earned 88 England caps.<\/p>\n<p>During a trophy-laden spell at Chelsea, Bright won eight Women\u2019s Super League titles \u2013 including six successive titles between 2020 and 2025 \u2013 along with six FA Cups and four League Cups.<\/p>\n<p>An ankle injury has kept the former Lionesses star sidelined since February, and she has now confirmed her decision to hang up her boots.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRepresenting Chelsea over the last 12 years has been everything to me, but I\u2019m now ready to say goodbye to playing football,\u201d Bright said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve given all I can, and I never wanted to fight for any other badge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is now time, and I\u2019m ready to go into a new era. I\u2019m always going to be Chelsea, but just in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bright is set to remain at the club in an ambassadorial role and will also continue as a trustee of the Chelsea Foundation.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #1b4f9c; color: white; border-radius: 12px; padding: 16px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 12px; font-family: sans-serif; box-shadow: 0 2px 6px rgba(0,0,0,0.1); flex-wrap: nowrap;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 28px; height: 28px; flex-shrink: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/6\/6b\/WhatsApp.svg\" alt=\"WhatsApp\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Get the latest direct to your phone \u2013 follow West London Sport\u2019s WhatsApp channel<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- \/.commentwrap --><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/themify_builder_content --><\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea captain Millie Bright has announced her retirement from football with immediate effect. The 32-year-old&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}