Chelsea Women have offered a contract to Lyon head coach Sonia Bompastor to replace USWNT-bound Emma Hayes at the end of the season.
Bompastor — who has won the Champions League as a player and manager — is the chosen candidate and Chelsea are negotiating a deal to appoint her.
Nothing has been signed and the process remains ongoing.
The 43-year-old was promoted from her role within the Lyon academy to the women’s head coach after the sacking of Jean-Luc Vasseur in April 2021.
She has a contract with the French club until 2025.
In her first full season in charge, Bompastor led Lyon to a double as they won the Division 1 Feminine and the Women’s Champions League.
Both triumphs were equally comfortable — Lyon won the league with 21 victories and one draw in 22 games and then beat Barcelona 3-1 in the final of the Champions League, scoring all of their goals inside 33 minutes.
Lyon retained their league title the following campaign with 20 wins in 22 matches but fell at the quarter-final stage of the Champions League, losing a penalty shootout to Chelsea after a 2-2 aggregate tie over two legs.
Bompastor guided Lyon to Champions League glory in 2022 (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
The French club have again reached the quarter-finals of this season’s competition, in which they have been drawn against Portuguese side Benfica, while they are 10 points clear of Paris Saint-Germain at the top of the French top flight with 14 wins and one draw from 15 games.
Chelsea stars Catarina Macario and Kadeisha Buchanan were both coached by Bompastor at Lyon before their moves to west London in 2023 and 2022 respectively.
Bompastor has been credited with installing a progressive system with her flexible 4-3-3 formation, with a win per cent rate over 85 per cent at Lyon.
She also enjoyed a highly successful playing career, winning eight league titles across her stints at Montpellier and Lyon, as well as two Champions Leagues at the latter.
Bompastor was capped 156 times by the France national team and also represented La Roche-sur-Yon, Washington Freedom and PSG.
Chelsea have identified her as the prime candidate to replace Hayes, who was confirmed as the next coach of the USWNT in November.
Since joining in 2012, Hayes has overseen an unprecedented period of success at Chelsea including six WSL titles, five FA Cups, two FA Women’s League Cups, one FA Women’s Spring Series trophy, and one Women’s Community Shield.
Hayes guided Chelsea to a domestic treble in 2021 and has been named manager of the season six times, as well as LMA WSL manager of the season on five occasions. Last year, she was awarded an OBE for her services to football. This followed an MBE she received in 2016.
(Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images)
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