Chelsea Blissett knows all too well about the curveballs life and football can throw at you. It’s those experiences that have driven her to inspire others.
Blissett is a passionate advocate for spreading awareness about eating disorders, using her own experiences to provide education for community football clubs, furthering her impact on public health.
She’s also currently on the mend from tearing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) for a second time last year, which has seen her amalgamate the two experiences into her campaign for building greater resilience when dealing with life’s challenges.
This week, her work off the field was recognised by the PFA when she was announced as one of the two recipients of the Craig Foster Scholarship for 2024 – along with Adelaide United’s Chelsie Dawber.
Named after the PFA Champion, the PFA Craig Foster Scholarship recognises the important role footballers play in shaping their communities and society.
After being announced as one of the recipients, the Brisbane Roar defender spoke to the PFA about what she hopes to achieve through her scholarship and how she aims to inspire others by sharing her journey.
For more info: PFA Announces 2024 Scholarship Recipients
Q: Tell us what it means to be one of the two recipients of the Craig Foster Scholarship?
CB: It was a surprise, but I was really honoured to receive the award. I know that there have been a lot of really inspiring players who have been doing really great things off the field, so it was really special to be at least recognised and nominated for what I’m trying to do.
I’m just trying to help get awareness for it [eating disorders]. I think it started off with me trying to share my journey with my eating disorder, trying to show young girls the prevalence of it within all female sport, and how we can pick it up early and that it’s okay to go into recovery.
And then when I did my ACL, I moved into doing a little bit of both and I just started sharing my ACL journey and how it affects me on and off the field, as obviously there’s also a massive prevalence in young female footballers as well and then it merged together in a way. I just think this award will help me be able to get that voice out there further… to help young female athletes and young male athletes as well.
Q: What is some of the work you’ve been doing off the field?
CB: I’ve been sharing my journey on my social media platform. I’m also a football coach. I coach in a one on one aspect as well, and through my partner’s business I’ve also been getting into mentoring and helping young girls who have either torn their ACL or are just looking at getting stronger mentally and to build their mental resilience. So when things like this do come up in their life, they have the tools to be able to deal with it as well.
Q: Tell us a bit about the importance of raising awareness for both eating disorders but also for ACL injuries
CB: Bringing awareness to it is really important. I know that when I was going through probably the hardest depths of my disorder, I felt very alone and very isolated. I felt like I didn’t have the resources to kind of reach out initially… or I actually didn’t even understand my disorder as a whole.
“So I just wanted to start raising awareness and getting it out there more, just to show, not necessarily the normalcy of it, but show young girls that they’re not alone and they’re not going through it by themselves.
I wanted to reiterate the importance of recovery, and how it can hinder you as an athlete and you as a person, and how much I was thinking that I don’t want another young girl that was my age, to feel that she’s not enough, and to feel that she’s alone and not quite understand what’s going on with herself or her mind or her body.
That was what I was aiming to do with raising awareness for eating disorders… because not many people know a lot about it, or actually understand the depths of what happens with someone with an eating disorder or even the steps it takes to actually get into recovery and stay in recovery.
It also intertwined a bit with my ACL because I would find when I went through my two ACLs, that is when my mental health would flare up the most. I then thought about sort of sharing my journey and how my ACL affects me. Feeling down is normal, the pain and the struggle of going through this is normal. But again, you’re not alone… so how do we build mental resilience to be able to get through all this and then come out better on the other side?
Q: Would you like to see the major competitions spread more awareness about eating disorders in football?
CB: “I think that when it comes to taking that step forward I don’t want to normalise it, because I don’t want it to become normal, but I just want people to feel comfortable to be able to come out and get help and not feel that kind of shame and feel that disappointment within themselves, that they feel like there’s something wrong with them.
“I think with all athletes… we don’t want to be seen as vulnerable, and we don’t want to be seen as not hard workers, or that we’ve got something ‘wrong with us’, because we are suffering through something.
“We’re athletes, but also we’re people too. We’re put in very high stressful situations, and sometimes how we deal with it is very different. Everyone’s very different. I think it’s just about allowing people to be themselves and express themselves, and that if you are struggling through something, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
“You’ve got the support around you, and that you’re not going to be thought of differently, not going to be judged differently, and you’re not going to be thought of any less of an athlete for coming out and getting help and being heard. I think that’s the major thing that I would love to see more of throughout the league and then just throughout the code as well.”
Q: What are you hoping to get out of the scholarship?
CB: “I’m hoping it’ll allow me to further get my message out. I would love to do some public speaking or be able to go around to clubs and speak about this issue and to raise awareness in a more of a grassroots level. That’s where I think my main passion comes from.
“I understand the resources that I get as a professional athlete through not only the club, but through the PFA, and I’m very grateful. But I also work with kids at a grassroots level every day and can see the resources that they get and understand that some of these kids will end up in a professional environment, but none have had the resources or the access to anything to actually put them in the right mental head space or build their mental resilience or build their awareness before they get there.
“I want to use the money from the scholarship to be able to build a presentation for grassroots clubs or NPL level clubs, and just be able to raise awareness, and be able to try and put these kids on the right path and hope it hopefully, get them to understand the importance of not only mental health, but just mental resilience and prevention as well, before it gets to the point of intervention.”
