The BackPage Weekly | New world record transfer fee in women’s football – the background behind rising transfer fees

By Jonny Madill, Deirdre Duke and Kathryn Williamson

The football transfer window has just seen a new world record transfer fee in women's football (Chelsea FC have reportedly paid San Diego Wave a transfer fee of around $1.1m or £900k to sign USA defender Naomi Girma). The previous record was £685k paid by Bay FC last year for Rachael Kundananji.

According to a recent FIFA report, transfer fees in the summer window of 2024 were almost double what was spent during the same period in 2023. Based on what we are seeing at SHERIDANS | SPORT, despite the women’s football transfer market being in the relatively early stages of its development, transfer fees are: a) becoming more frequent; and b) growing.

Why?

▶️ Top players are now getting better representation and advice from agents and lawyers (which was not previously always the case);

▶️ We are starting to see a move away from short-term player contracts (1-3 years) towards longer-term deals which are more akin to the men's game. Not only do longer term deals give players greater contractual stability, they give clubs better protection over their biggest assets. We also expect to see more release clauses in player contracts;

▶️ Despite women’s teams being operated at a loss, buying clubs have deeper pockets than ever before (especially the bigger European clubs like Chelsea FC) as a result of clubs better investing in women's teams (due to the potential longer term upside). This is also due to the increased commercial revenue being generated by clubs (whether from matchday, broadcast or sponsorship) translating into increased spending powers;

▶️ More data is being used to value players against the market (both from an on-field perspective but also from a commercial, image rights and off-field perspective). The latter is particularly significant given the increasing commercial and brand value of the world’s top female players – which is driving the value of players as trading assets;

▶️ The conveyor belt of world class talent being produced by the NWSL (Girma and Kundananji are great examples) is starting to come to the fore. Likewise, the increased dominance and pulling power of the WSL in England has seen a steady flow of high profile, highly valued US players move from the NWSL (as well as Girma, we’ve also seen Emily Fox and Catarina Macari);

▶️ There are cultural changes too. Top clubs are taking a more targeted, creative and increasingly data-led approach to recruitment and transfer strategy, especially in the WSL (again following the lead of the men's game). Clubs are bringing in talent off the field as well as on it (e.g. experienced sporting directors). This too will likely lead to more regular, and higher value, transfer fees.

There is perhaps still a reticence from selling clubs to sell their biggest assets before contracts expire – in part due to the fact that many women’s teams are still not yet operated as a standalone business with its own P&L account, but we'd expect this to continue to change.

There is a separate query about whether the gap between the so-called big European clubs and clubs lower down the pyramid is growing to the extent that competitive balance is being affected in the major leagues, but that is perhaps a natural growing pain for the industry to manage.

For now at least, we expect to see more transfer fees, and more records being broken, for the myriad of reasons given above.