Meet the man who left Chelsea Women to lead World Sevens Football

Upfront - A Women's Football Podcast

Stak Production

Soccer, Womens World Cup, Girls Football, Lionesses, Womens Sports, Female Sports, Chloe Kelly, Womens England Football, Leah Williamson, Womens Soccer, Nwsl, Keira Walsh, Womens Football, England Womens, Sports

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For over a decade, Adrian Jacob has helped shape Chelsea into one of the most successful and dominant teams in the game. Today, he sits down with Rach to take us inside that journey - from what it was like working with Emma Hayes to some of the club’s biggest moments. He also gives his take on accusations that Chelsea have ‘spent’ their way to success and explains why it’s up to other clubs to catch up.

But Adrian’s next project is just as ambitious: World Sevens Football - the new, women’s seven-a-side tournament launching next month. He breaks down what his role as Head of Football actually involves, explains why this competition could be a game changer, and addresses concerns about its potential impact on player loading, calendar congestion and whether it could widen financial gaps in the game.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Upfront. I'm Rachel O'Sullivan. I'm delighted to be joined today by former executive manager at Chelsea Women, Adrian Jacob.
0:10.0	Adrian was one of Chelsea's longest serving figures spending 11 years at the club during a period where they won 16 trophies, seven being WSL titles.
0:19.0	He played a key role in the club's operations, which is exactly what we'll be diving into,
0:23.6	as well as what it was like to work alongside Emma Hayes.
0:26.4	But there's even more for us to unpack, as Adrian left his position at Chelsea only two weeks ago
0:30.8	to become a central figure in the new global women's seven-aside tournament, World Sevens Football.
0:36.2	He'll be talking us through exactly what we can expect from it
0:38.9	and giving us his response to some of the big concerns around it.
0:42.0	Let's get straight into it.
0:51.5	Welcome to the pod, Adrian.
0:53.6	Thank you so much for joining me. I know you've got a little bit of time on your hands, which must feel very strange. But I do appreciate you spending some time with us to have a chat about what's next. Yeah, no, look, first of all, thanks for having me. Really appreciate being on the podcast.
1:12.8	Yeah, supposedly I have some free time, but yeah, I mean, the new project is already very, very busy and lots and lots going on.
1:23.5	The one difference is that I suddenly have this thing called a weekend, which, yeah, I believe other people have.
1:33.1	Yeah, I've not had it for 12 years and it's, yeah, it's really interesting what you're supposed to do.
1:38.5	I don't quite get it.
1:39.8	It doesn't sound like you're relaxing, but you, what, you've just come back from Euro Disney.
1:45.5	So, tiring weekend.
1:48.0	Yeah, exactly.
1:49.2	So my daughters had dance shows there this weekend.
1:53.0	So a lot of walking around, I suppose, getting 12 years worth of weekends into one weekend,
1:59.9	although the first weekend I actually had off
2:03.3	last weekend, my wife made me go to the garden centre and literally I was ferrying the kids around
	...

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