Lioness star Ella Toone engaged to non‑league footballer Joe Bunney, Manchester United  2026

Key Points

• Lionesses and Manchester United star Ella Toone has announced her engagement to long‑term partner Joe Bunney, a non‑league footballer and coach.
• The proposal took place during a holiday in Ibiza in August 2025, shortly after Toone helped England win Euro 2025.
• Bunney, 31, plays for Stalybridge Celtic in the eighth tier and also coaches at Toone’s ET7 Academy for young female players.
• The couple shared the news on Instagram with a series of photos of the clifftop‑style proposal, captioned “Forever… 04/08/25”.
• Friends and teammates have described the pair as “very much in love” and highlighted that the engagement capped a summer of both sporting success and personal loss.
• Manchester United Women and the Lionesses camp publicly congratulated Toone and Bunney, underscoring strong support from her football community.

Manchester United(Manchester Mirror)April 20, 2026 – England and Manchester United midfielder Ella Toone has become the focus of a feel‑good human‑interest story after her engagement to long‑term partner Joe Bunney, a move that has drawn attention not only for its romantic backdrop in Ibiza but also for how it reflects the personal life of one of the Lionesses’ most prominent stars.

As reported by multiple outlets, including Manchester United’s official site and several national sports publications, Toone announced the news on Instagram in August 2025 with a caption marking “Forever… 04/08/25”, effectively turning a private moment into a widely shared public milestone.

How did Joe Bunney propose to Ella Toone in Ibiza?

As reported by a piece for Goal and mirrored by outlets such as The Sun and Oasis FM, Bunney’s proposal unfolded during a holiday in Ibiza, where he enlisted the help of his four‑year‑old son Arlo to create a romantic setting.

These outlets describe the scene as being framed by a heart‑shaped arrangement of red roses and a sign that read “will you marry me?”, with Bunney dropping to one knee on what social media and clip‑compilation channels later styled as a “picturesque” or “clifftop‑style” vista.

According to the Oasis FM write‑up, Toone shared a gallery of images showing her embracing Bunney, displaying her engagement ring, and toasting champagne with Arlo, all set against a Mediterranean sunset, which fans and media have since highlighted as a key visual anchor for the story.

What is the background of Ella Toone and Joe Bunney’s relationship?

As reported by The Sun in its profile of “Who is Ella Toone’s partner?”, the couple are understood to have been in a relationship for around three years before the engagement, dating since at least 2022.

That piece notes that the pair first appeared together publicly in holiday photos from Ibiza, where they were photographed hugging and kissing on the beach, and a friend quoted in the article said that Toone and Bunney were “very much in love and have been together for a while now”.

An article on Entertainment Daily adds that both are from the Manchester area, that they met through mutual friends, and that Bunney, despite being a Manchester City supporter, calls himself Toone’s “biggest cheerleader”, underscoring an element of cross‑club loyalty that has been picked up by several fan‑facing outlets.

What role does Joe Bunney play in football and in Ella Toone’s career?

As summarised by Goal and other sports coverage, Bunney, 31, is a non‑league defender who currently plays for Stalybridge Celtic in the eighth tier of the English football pyramid.

The same reports note that he has previously turned out for clubs including Rochdale, Bolton Wanderers, Grimsby Town, Matlock Town, Hartlepool United, and Altrincham, among others, which gives him a trajectory that contrasts with Toone’s elite‑level career while still keeping him firmly within the football world.

Several outlets, including Goal, also point out that Bunney coaches at Toone’s ET7 Academy, an initiative set up by the Lioness to nurture young female football talent, which means his professional life is now closely intertwined with her post‑playing‑career and community‑work ambitions.

How has Ella Toone’s family and inner circle been involved in this chapter of her life?

Coverage in The Sun and on Oasis FM emphasises that the engagement came at the end of a summer marked by both triumph and grief for Toone, who played every game for England at Euro 2025 and scored twice as the Lionesses retained their title.

Both pieces note that Toone publicly announced the death of her grandmother just hours before the Euro 2025 final, an event that has since been woven into the broader narrative of how the Ibiza proposal and engagement functioned as a light‑at‑the‑end‑of‑the‑tunnel moment for her.

A follow‑up feature on a video‑style platform, summarising appearances by the couple on a talk‑show brand, similarly describes that year as one of “highs and lows”, and that marriage plans are being discussed alongside grief‑processing and return‑to‑action planning for the Women’s Super League.

What has been the reaction from Manchester United and the Lionesses camp?

As reported by Manchester United’s official website, the women’s team and club staff congratulated Toone on her engagement, publishing a short news item that described the proposal images and highlighted the Euro‑winning context in which the announcement arrived.

The club piece observes that Toone’s teammates were preparing for a pre‑season friendly against Manchester City when the news broke, and that they were quick to congratulate her, underscoring that the moment landed within a tightly knit dressing‑room culture.

Similarly, round‑up coverage on All Football and Goal notes that the Lionesses’ wider circle treated the engagement as a natural extension of Toone’s on‑pitch success, with the phrase “it tops off a brilliant summer” used by The Sun‑linked write‑ups to describe the sequence of Euro‑winning and engagement‑announcing in quick succession.

Background of the development: How fan‑media and social media turned a private moment into a national story

The engagement of Ella Toone and Joe Bunney did not begin as a front‑page news item; instead, it emerged via Toone’s own Instagram gallery, which was then republished and narrated by clubs, sports‑media brands, and social‑media‑focused news items.

Outlets such as Goal, The Sun, Oasis FM, and All Football all derived their core timeline details proposal date, location, role of Bunney’s son, and the “Forever 04/08/25” caption directly from those posts, then layered on biographical context about Bunney’s clubs and the wider narrative of Toone’s Euro‑winning summer.

This structure is typical of modern sports‑celebrity reporting: a private social‑media moment is treated as a primary source, then reconstructed by multiple outlets using largely the same quotes and images, differentiated only by slight variations in tone and emphasis.

Prediction: How this engagement story may affect audiences in Manchester and beyond

For fans of Manchester United Women and the Lionesses, the confirmation that Toone is engaged to Bunney may deepen the sense of familiarity with the player as a person beyond her on‑pitch achievements, because the detail of a partner, two‑year‑old Arlo, and a shared academy project helps to ground her in everyday life.

For local news readers in Greater Manchester, the story offers a cross‑cutting angle that blends sport, relationships, and family, which can make Toone feel more relatable as a home‑grown figure whose personal milestones are now being reported alongside fixtures and transfer gossip.

Among younger female footballers and academy players connected to ET7, the visible alignment between Toone’s professional identity and her family‑centred life, highlighted in the way Bunney coaches at the same academy, may subtly reinforce the idea that a high‑level football career can coexist with long‑term relationships and family build‑up, without the narrative being forced into overt commentary.

Overall, the engagement itself is a single personal event, but the way it has been framed across multiple outlets as a post‑Euro‑win coda, a private‑moment‑turned‑public‑story, and a marker of continuity in a relationship that predates major trophies means that future coverage of Toone’s career is likely to be read, at least partly, through the lens of this now‑established chapter with Bunney.