The victory sees Chelsea become the third champions of the global seven-a-side professional women’s football tournament, and beat United for only the 18th time in all competitions.
Saturday’s final saw Marc Skinner’s take an early lead through Jess Park, before Chelsea restored parity through Sjoeke Nusken. Park added a second to her tally, before Anna Sandberg and Melvine Malard lifted United’s lead to three goals.
Yet three goals in quick succession from Keira Walsh, Aggie Beever-Jones and Ellie Carpenter brought Chelsea back level before half-time. Lea Schuller restored United’s leave shortly after the restart.
But with just over two minutes remaining in regular time, Beever-Jones levelled the score, before displaying a sensational bit of individual brilliance to claim victory in the final 20 seconds of the game.
The World Sevens was launched last year and co-founded by American entrepreneurs Jennifer Mackesy and Justin Fishkin. Mackesy has a minority stake in Chelsea Women and is co-owner of NWSL club Gotham FC.
This year’s iteration of the tournament took place at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium and featured eight Women’s Super League clubs: Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Leicester City, London City Lionesses, United, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United.
Beever-Jones finished as the competition’s top scorer with eight goals and also recorded five assists.
While the previous events in Estoril and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, — won by Bayern Munich and San Diego Wave respectively — provided a prize money pool of $5m (£3.76m) spread among its eight teams, this year’s prize pot was lower, at $1.5m (£1.1m).
Participation in the event earned clubs an automatic £70,000, with the eighth and seventh-placed teams earned an additional £20,000, meaning teams earned a minimum of £90,000 for participating in the tournament, with remaining earnings based on positions.
Teams that reached the semi-final earned an equal split of prize money with 50 per cent earned going directly to the players and staff competing and the other half going to the club to distribute how they see fit.
Chelsea reached the final by defeating Aston Villa 8-2 in the semi-finals, while United registered a 5-2 victory over Everton in their semi-final.
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