Four children together
Trainer confesses relationship with assistant: “Leasted 13 years”
Updated on March 16, 2025 – 9:24 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Sonia Bombastor has been in a relationship with her partner for over ten years. For a long time she kept the secret – for a certain reason.
After years of silence, Chelsea trainer Sonia Bombastor made her relationship with her assistant Camille Abily. With this step, she ends a 13-year secret that increasingly became a burden. In her autobiography “A Football Life” and an interview with the French sports newspaper “L’équipe”, Bombastor spoke about the relationship for the first time.
The former international and her partner Abily have been a couple for 13 years and have four children aged three to nine. Both have been working closely together since their active career. From 2010 they played together for Olympique Lyon and later formed a trainer duo that switched to Chelsea in 2024.
With 156 international matches and a Champions League title as a trainer (2022), Bombastor is one of the most successful personalities in women’s football. She herself won the premier class as an active 2011 and 2012. Abily can also look back on an impressive career: she completed 183 missions in the jersey of the French national team, with Lyon she won the Champions League five times (2011, 2016 to 2018).
Bombastor explained to the “L’équipe” that they held their common relationship out of shame: “We were two well -known players. We were often associated with many things. We did not want it to be.” She confessed that the hiding of the relationship became a burden over time: “We noticed that it is a difficult secret to have lied for 13 years.”
An important motivation for late revelation was the importance of their children. Bombastor emphasized that she wanted to leave “a trace for her children” and serve as a model for other people. “With increasing age I think: if it helps others develop or to find ahead in life, why not?” Abily also emphasized that her professional cooperation does not depend on her relationship, but based on a professional addition.
Despite the joint success, the two trainers plan to go separate paths soon. Abily expressed the desire to take over his own head coach position in order to feel “the adrenaline on the coaching bench”. Experience at Chelsea is very positive, but she now wants to take on more responsibility.