{"id":4984,"date":"2023-12-22T12:55:04","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T11:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2023\/12\/22\/read_news-phpnid49872\/"},"modified":"2023-12-22T12:55:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T11:55:04","slug":"read_news-phpnid49872","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2023\/12\/22\/read_news-phpnid49872\/","title":{"rendered":"Official: Super Falcons-eligible midfielder signs new deal with Chelsea\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"newsbody\">\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/..\/football_pics\/9904Akpan.png\" height=\"240\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" alt=\"Official: Super Falcons-eligible midfielder signs new deal with Chelsea\u00a0\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With a statement on their official website, Women&#8217;s Super League\u00a0champions Chelsea have announced that Ashanti Akpan has signed a new deal with the club.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Akpan has been rewarded with her first professional contract after impressing for the youth teams of the Blues.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The new agreement between club and player will keep the midfielder at Chelsea until at least the summer of 2025,\u00a0with the option to extend by a further year.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ashanti joined Chelsea in 2013 when she was seven, rising through the youth team ranks to make her senior debut\u00a0in a 3-1 victory over Reading at the quarterfinal stage of the Women\u2019s FA Cup on March 19,2023.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She received her first call-up for a first team game in a UEFA Women&#8217;s Champions League encounter against Real Madrid in November 2022 but was a non-playing substitute.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Born in Warsaw, Akpan is eligible to represent the Super Falcons through her Nigerian father, Poland by virtue of being born in the country and having a Polish mom, as well as England where she has lived for more than five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old became provisionally cap-tied to England in October, after coming off the bench at halftime in a\u00a0\u00a02024 UEFA European Women&#8217;s U19 Championship qualifier against Greece.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Akpan\u00a0was a member of the Chelsea squad that won the FA Youth Cup in 2021-2022 and the\u00a0FA WSL Academy Cup the following season.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"embeddedContent oembed-provider- oembed-provider-twitter\" data-align=\"none\" data-oembed=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChelseaFCW\/status\/1738107604243497249\" data-oembed_provider=\"twitter\" data-resizetype=\"noresize\" data-title=\"m\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" xml:lang=\"en\">Ashanti Akpan has signed her first professional contract with the club! \u270d\ufe0f\ud83d\udc99<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u2014 Chelsea FC Women (@ChelseaFCW) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChelseaFCW\/status\/1738107604243497249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">December 22, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ifeanyi Emmanuel\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Copyright ANS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nAll rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from allnigeriasoccer.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/read_news.php?nid=49872\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With a statement on their official website, Women&#8217;s Super League\u00a0champions Chelsea have announced that Ashanti Akpan has signed a new deal with the club.\u00a0 \u00a0 Akpan has been rewarded with her first professional contract after impressing for the youth teams of the Blues.\u00a0 \u00a0 The new agreement between club and player will keep the midfielder [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}