Barclays Women’s Super League just acquired the best centerback Emma Hayes has ever seen. U.S. women’s national team defender Naomi Girma joined Chelsea FC after the club paid a $1.1 million transfer fee. The move comes after the announcement that former NWSL MVP and Brazilian international Kerolin signed with Manchester City as a free agent, and now NJ/NY Gotham FC fullback Jenna Nighshwonger will join Arsenal on a $100,000 fee as reported by The Athletic.
There’s a literal million-dollar gap in the latest transfer fee for the two USWNT defenders, but that hasn’t stopped concerns about whether this isa problem for American women’s soccer to begin creeping into the conversation. Sure, maybe these are just transfer deals well struck, but is it ever really a bad time for opining on the state of both leagues. Let’s break some things down, take a deep breath, and look at why, no, these deals are not a problem for American soccer and the NWSL.
Why did Girma spurn NWSL?
Well for starters, she didn’t. Don’t be weird. Girma’s rise to prominence has been meteoric and with such early success in her career, she seemed poised to become the next player to earn a headline transfer fee sooner rather than later.
Starting with the buzz of whether or not she’d be selected as the No. 1 pick over equally celebrated prospect Jaelin Howell in the 2022 draft, there were rumors about whether or not she’d start her professional career in the United States. The Stanford University alum was drafted number one overall by San Diego Wave FC in 2022 and made more history with the expansion side.
In her first season, she won Rookie of the Year and Defender of the Year honors while aiding the Wave to the 2022 NWSL semifinals. She followed up in 2023 with another Defender of the Year award, and helped the club lift their first trophy – the NWSL Shield. Despite another NWSL semifinal elimination, the Wave looked poised for another deep run in 2024.
However, the 2024 season took a traumatic turn as the Wave struggled to generate goals or pick up wins. The club was dancing around the playoff line, an expanded eight-team format, and the franchise later dismissed head coach Casey Stoney midseason, and continued to spiral and crashed out of playoff contention in the regular season.
As the Wave continued to navigate player, staff, and front office turnover, former Club President Jill Ellis filed a defamation lawsuit against a former Wave employee who had accused Ellis of creating a toxic work environment. An investigation (via a third-party firm) occurred earlier in the year and found the Wave to have not violated NWSL policies. Ellis has since called the allegations “false.”
Since then six former employees have filed a lawsuit against the Wave and NWSL, though Ellis is not named as a defendant, and recently was hired for an executive role with FIFA. The lawsuit contains claims of sexual harassment, retaliation, racial discrimination, and wrongful termination.
San Diego was sold earlier this year to the Leichtman-Levine family at a $120 million valuation, and the offseason has been dedicated to a roster rebuild with several prospects signed. Now, with multiple forms of money coming through allocation, intra-league, and now transfer fees, the Wave have set them self up for future success. Chelsea will pay out Girma’s fee over the next three years according to sources familiar with the deal.
Girma’s desire to play overseas also came at the perfect time as part of her contract will fall in line with a build-up toward the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics.
All of which is to say, Girma was an extremely in-demand player on a club going through a tumultuous time. That’s when big transfers tend to happen.
No, the NWSL isn’t doomed now
NWSL is not doomed now, nor was it doomed when USWNT players Carli Lloyd, Crystal Dunn, Alex Morgan, Sam Mewis, or Rose Lavelle played in Europe. It will not be doomed as more players seek different opportunities on other teams or leagues in the future.
Unlike past contracts for previous USWNT stars that were typically short loans or one-year deals, it was typically rare to see a deal longer than that before 2020. The USWNT captain, Lindsey Horan, left Portland Thorns to play for Lyon in 2022 on a loan but has since departed the NWSL club and signed a permanent deal with the French side through 2026
NWSL is still the league of the world’s most exciting goal scorers with Temwa Chawinga and Barbra Banda and is the home of “triple espresso” with Mal Swanson, Sophia Smith, and Trinity Rodman. Smith has stated in interviews that despite offers from Europe, she currently has no desire to leave NWSL, and believes her development will be best managed stateside.
If anything, a consistent rise in transfer fees going directly into the NWSL will only make the league more a lucrative landscape as it continues to develop players that will fetch fees in unheard-of amounts of money in the women’s game. Just a few years ago, a million dollar transfer fee was an ambitious dream. Today it is a reality.
Part of what makes Girma’s move to England so interesting is that the length of her deal is as intriguing as the transfer fee that came with it. It’s a four and half year contract, that could keep her with Chelsea beyond the next 2027-28 cycle and into 2029. Girma’s deal also sets a new precedent for players moving forward.
Is Chelsea the only team that exists in the WSL?
It certainly might come off that way to those just tapping into either league at the moment, but no, WSL is a historic league in England, with 12 teams and a promotion and relegation system. Before Girma’s move became official, the rumor mill also included Arsenal in the mix for her services before Lyon became the key rival in negotiations.
Arsenal quickly fell out of contention and were unable to match the figures, which perhaps is reflected in the stark differences in transfers paid for Nighswonger, another 2024 Olympic gold medalist defender.
While some wonder if “star” players will keep leaving, the answer is yes and they should if that’s what they want. There’s another layer, where exactly could these types of players go? Is it just Chelsea, Lyon, or Barcelona as the only clubs with bankroll to entertain these types of negotiations for roster building?
At its foundation in 2011, the WSL had strict salary cap rules with the intention to keep talented players throughout multiple clubs. It also meant only a maximum of four players on each team could be paid over $25,000 a year. This was aimed to keep the most talented and experienced players spread out across all the clubs in the league, but eventually, the caps were softened in 2014. Presently, the WSL salary cap is 40% of the revenue taken by the club.
There’s been debate about that 40% revenue cap and how it includes revenue from the entirety of the parent club. Top-rated WSL clubs, with successful men’s Premier League squads, may benefit from more earned revenue, and the argument that the current spending system is developing gaps between WSL teams is valid. The difference between $1.1 million and $100,000 is now evident between even two of most iconic football franchises in Chelsea and Arsenal.
It’s already a concern for the WSL as Chelsea continue to stack their bench with several key pieces and the league looks to be dominated by few other teams. Steph Houghton, the former Lioness team captain, played for Arsenal and Manchester City and recently spoke with BBC Radio 5 Live on Girma’s landmark transfer fee from the WSL to the NWSL. She expressed concern and referred to the amount as a learning moment for the league as a whole.
“My worry is that it is going to be two or three teams that are buying the best players, so what happens to the rest of the league? This is a lesson for all the other clubs that they need to start investing, they need to put their money to make this as competitive as possible.
We want to make the WSL the best and the only way you can do that is by having games every week that are competitive and not so predictable. We want owners and footballers to go ‘we’re going to take this seriously. This is not about putting in as little as possible’.
“You have to go and invest in players and the professionalism of the game and the standard and the likes of Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal have done that for a long time. It is now about other clubs really biting the bullet and saying ‘this is where we want to be and this is what we need to do for the game in general.'”
Ok, so this is just normal?
Honestly, it’s not quite normal in the women’s game, yet. But as today’s market grows, with rising global transfer fees and player movement, it could be.
While they are often the norm in men’s leagues, the same transfer culture is rapidly developing in the women’s game and has really only been evolving since 2020. In that sense, women’s soccer is indeed behind what fans of the sport have become accustomed to regarding other things that come with general transfer culture — active news cycles, rumors, reporting, player and club recognition, and overall engagement.
A transfer rarely underscores the interconnected nature of the sport, it’s literally a mechanism where players move across leagues to seek new opportunities and challenges. If NWSL wants to keep up with the transfer market the opposite way, then the league salary cap (increased 20% to $3.3 million for the 2025 season) and transfer cap ($500,000) might need adjustments as well.
Moves like this show progress for the women’s game, but they shine a spotlight on specific leagues. Girma’s million-dollar transfer fee is not as much a sign of trouble for the NWSL but rather a milestone and it highlights the league’s progress and growing influence on the game globally.
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