Pernille Harder & Magdalena Eriksson choose next club in joint Chelsea exit
Chelsea pair Pernille Harder and Magdalena Eriksson are both set to join Bayern Munich when their respective contracts expire at the end of next month.
Their joint departure, although expected for some time, stands to be a seismic shift for Chelsea, with Eriksson club captain since 2019 and Harder formerly the most expensive female player in history when she arrived from Wolfsburg in 2020.
An ambitious Bayern are yet to go beyond the semi-finals of the Women’s Champions League, but they have repeatedly battled established European giants Wolfsburg for domestic supremacy and currently lead the Frauen Bundesliga as they aim for a second title in three seasons.
Bayern have assembled a squad in recent years full of German talent, complemented by international stars approaching their peak like Georgia Stanway, Tuva Hansen and Tainara, as well as vastly experienced serial winner Saki Kumagai. Harder and Eriksson fall into the latter category.
Eriksson and Harder, previously also teammates at Linkoping in Sweden, have been in a relationship off the pitch for almost a decade and were always expected to move together when the time came to leave Chelsea for a new challenge.
Real Madrid and Lyon have been two of the most talked about clubs, but reports from both Fotbollskanlen in Sweden and TV2 in Norway, the latter the homeland of Bayern coach Alexander Straus, have named Bayern as the team that has won the race.
Read the latest Chelsea Women news here
feed
There is no official announcement or public comment from those involved as yet, but both well positioned media outlets suggest that the players have already signed, as they are permitted to do after entering their final six months of their Chelsea deals in January.
Eriksson has won four WSL titles during her time at Chelsea, wearing the captain’s armband for the last three, and is still set to play a vital role as they aim for another in what remains of this season. Harder has been part of the latter two after four straight domestic doubles with Wolfsburg. Between, they have clocked up four Champions League final appearances too.
Both players are set to be at the Women’s World Cup this summer, with Eriksson’s Sweden among the favourites and Harder’s Denmark in a group with reigning European champions England.