Few England players carry a story like Fara Williams: 172 caps, according to England Football (official FA records), and a seven-year homelessness battle that overlapped with her international career. The full name listed in her Wikipedia biography, Fara Tanya Franki Merrett, surprises many fans who only knew the name on the back of an England shirt.
Full name: Fara Tanya Franki Merrett (Wikipedia biography) ·
Born: 25 January 1984 (Arsenal (club profile)) ·
England caps: 172 (England Football) ·
Active years: 2001–2021 (FotMob (statistics site)) ·
Homeless while playing: 7 years (FIFA (governing body))
Quick snapshot
- Born in London on 25 January 1984 (Arsenal (club profile))
- 172 caps and 40 goals for England (England Football (official records))
- Publicly identified as lesbian (Wikipedia biography)
- Homeless for about seven years while playing professionally (FIFA (governing body))
- Who Fara Williams is currently dating
- The exact number of LGBTQ+ Lionesses in any given squad
- Whether Lauren Hemp’s partner is publicly named
- 2001: England debut against Portugal at 17 (Arsenal (club profile))
- 2006–2013: seven-year homeless period (FIFA (governing body))
- 2018: awarded MBE (Wikipedia biography)
- 2021: retired from professional football (FotMob (statistics site))
- Punditry for BBC and Sky Sports (Wikipedia biography)
- Coaching staff roles in the women’s game (England Football)
- Advocacy on homelessness and LGBTQ+ inclusion (FIFA (governing body))
Six clubs, 172 caps and a homelessness battle that ran under much of that success — the pattern is hard to miss.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Real name | Fara Tanya Franki Merrett (per Wikipedia biography) |
| Born | 25 January 1984, London (Arsenal (club profile)) |
| Position | Midfielder (Arsenal (club profile)) |
| Senior England debut | vs Portugal, 2001 (Arsenal (club profile)) |
| International career | 2001–2019 (England Football) |
| England caps / goals | 172 caps, 40 goals (England Football (official records)) |
| Clubs | Chelsea (youth), Charlton Athletic, Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Reading (Arsenal (club profile); FotMob) |
| Homeless period | About 7 years while playing (FIFA (governing body)) |
| Major honour | MBE in 2018 (Wikipedia biography) |
| Retired | 2021 (FotMob (statistics site)) |
What is Fara Williams’ real name?
Fara Williams is the name that appears in every team sheet and every official record. The fuller identity, Fara Tanya Franki Merrett, is the one listed in her Wikipedia biography — and it catches many fans off guard.
Williams was born in London on 25 January 1984, according to her Arsenal (club profile), and started out as a youth player at Chelsea before moving to Charlton Athletic. That route into senior football is documented by FIFA (governing body), which profiles her path from the lower levels of the game to the World Cup.
- Senior England debut: Portugal, 2001
- Clubs: Chelsea (youth), Charlton, Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Reading
- Position: Midfielder
For fans searching “Fara Williams real name”, the distinction is simple: records say Williams, but her biography starts with Merrett.
What this means: the performance name and the private name belong to the same person, and the gap between them is part of her story.
Who is Fara Williams’ partner?
Fara Williams is openly lesbian, per her Wikipedia biography — a fact she has never hidden and one that made her a visible figure in women’s football.
What she has kept private is her current relationship. In the profiles and interviews reviewed for this article, no current partner is publicly named. Since retiring, Williams has focused her media appearances on football, homelessness and LGBTQ+ visibility rather than her dating life.
The same fans who celebrate Williams’s visibility do not get access to her private life. Out does not mean an open book — and that boundary is worth respecting.
The pattern: visibility on sexuality and privacy on specifics have existed side by side throughout her career.
What does Fara Williams do now?
Williams retired from professional football in 2021, per her FotMob (statistics site) profile, but she has not left the game. She works as a coach and as a pundit for BBC and Sky Sports, roles listed across post-retirement coverage. For a deeper look at her playing career, see Fara Williams: Career, Homelessness and England Legacy.
Her current roles, in sum:
- Coaching and punditry for BBC and Sky Sports (Wikipedia biography)
- Pitch named in her honour at St George’s Park in 2024 (England Football)
- MBE for services to football in 2018 (Wikipedia biography)
- Advocacy on homelessness and LGBTQ+ inclusion (FIFA (governing body))
Her second act is not a quiet retirement. It is a working life spent converting the hardest part of her biography into visibility for other players.
Why this matters: the most reliable way to understand what Williams does now is to watch where she turns up — pitch ceremonies, broadcast studios and campaigns about the game’s duty of care.
How many of the Lionesses are queer?
The FA does not publish data on players’ sexual orientation, so any number is an estimate based on who has chosen to be public. Among England squads of the past decade, at least three Lionesses are widely reported to have been in same-sex relationships: Fara Williams, Lucy Bronze and Lauren Hemp.
- Fara Williams — openly lesbian; a former England midfielder with 172 caps.
- Lucy Bronze — widely reported to have a female partner.
- Lauren Hemp — widely reported to be in a same-sex relationship; her partner is not publicly named.
- Georgia Stanway — in an opposite-sex relationship, one of the few current Lionesses whose private life is straightforwardly public.
Most of the squad keeps relationship status private, which makes any “count” partial by definition. The number that circulates among fans — “at least three” — reflects only the players who have been visible about it.
The England women’s team is celebrated for LGBTQ+ visibility, yet there is no official count of LGBTQ+ players. Celebration and silence run through the same squad.
The implication: when the FA and clubs say they support LGBTQ+ players, the public proof is the players’ own openness, not any official statistic.
Which football players are openly lesbians?
Within English football, the most prominent openly lesbian player of the past two decades is Fara Williams. Her 172 England caps gave her a platform that few other out players have reached.
Internationally, the names most often cited in fan and media discussions are Megan Rapinoe of the United States and Aivi Luik of Australia. Neither list is exhaustive; the broader point is that the women’s game now includes out players at every level.
Watch which Lionesses speak about their families and partners without hedging — that is the clearest signal of how far the locker room culture has moved.
The trade-off: visibility is a gift for fans, but it still depends on each player’s consent to share her private life.
The generational shift: players who came up after Williams are more likely to be out early in their careers, because the visibility she helped normalise made it safer to be.
Fara Williams timeline
The dates that matter most in Williams’s story are not the trophies but the gaps between them.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 25 Jan 1984 | Born in London (Arsenal (club profile)) |
| 2001 | Senior England debut against Portugal (England Football) |
| 2004 | Joined Everton (Arsenal (club profile)) |
| 2006–2013 | Homeless while playing professional football (FIFA (governing body)) |
| 2012 | Played for Great Britain at the Olympic Games (Arsenal (club profile)) |
| 2013 & 2014 | Won Women’s Super League with Liverpool (Arsenal (club profile)) |
| 2018 | Awarded MBE for services to football (Wikipedia biography) |
| 2021 | Retired from professional football (FotMob (statistics site)) |
| 2024 | Won FA Cup as assistant coach with Manchester United Women (England Football) |
The pattern: every public milestone was matched by a private struggle, which makes the milestones the more remarkable.
Facts and open questions
Confirmed facts
- Born 25 January 1984 in London (Arsenal (club profile))
- 172 England caps (England Football (official records))
- Publicly identified as lesbian (Wikipedia biography)
- Seven years homeless while playing (FIFA (governing body))
What’s unclear
- Who Fara Williams is currently dating
- The exact number of LGBTQ+ Lionesses
- Whether Lauren Hemp’s partner is publicly named
- The specific circumstances that led to Williams’s homeless period
The pattern: the facts that can be verified are the ones Williams has made public; the gaps are ones she has chosen not to fill. Read the full guide at Fara Williams: Real Name, Partner, Homelessness, LGBTQ+ Legacy.
In her own words
The Lionesses saved my life.
Fara Williams, in The Mirror (2025), on being homeless for seven years while playing for England
172 appearances, 40 goals.
England Football (official records)
The gap between those two statements is the whole story: on one side, survival; on the other, record books.
The bigger picture
Fara Williams’ story turns a statistic into a challenge: the 172 caps and the seven homeless years sit in the same biography. For the FA and the clubs that shape the women’s game, the implication is clear — protect out players and support players in crisis the way Williams needed, so the next 172-cap career is not also a seven-year homelessness story.
Frequently asked questions
Does Fara Williams have any children?
The public record in the sources reviewed for this article does not mention children.
Why was Fara Williams homeless?
Williams has not given a single public cause. FIFA’s official profile frames the period as part of a route ‘from living rough to the World Cup’, with football as the anchor that carried her through.
What teams did Fara Williams play for?
Chelsea (as a youth player), Charlton Athletic, Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal and Reading — per her career history on FotMob (statistics site).
Is Fara Williams completely retired from football?
She retired from playing in 2021, but continues to work in the game as a coach and pundit.
Are any other Lionesses married to men?
Yes. Georgia Stanway, a current England forward, is in a relationship with a man.
Who is considered the most famous female English footballer?
There is no official ranking. Fara Williams is among the most decorated, with 172 caps, and one of the most visible.
How can fans contact or follow Fara Williams?
Williams appears regularly as a pundit for BBC and Sky Sports, which is the main public route to her current work.
The common thread: each answer comes from the public record, and each gap reflects information that Williams has not shared.
Richard Vane is Senior Reporter at MorningTimes.uk, covering breaking UK news stories across politics, business and public affairs.