The women’s soccer transfer landscape is in a brave new era.

In recent years, there was plenty of speculation about which player — and which team — would break the $1million transfer threshold. Last week, U.S. women’s national team defender Naomi Girma joined Chelsea for a $1.1million fee, breaking that milestone barrier.

Her transfer has knock-on effects, particularly for the NWSL and its relationship with the global market. It also erases pressure on other players who are signed for such an amount — Chelsea’s confidence in Girma could allow other teams to pay similar fees without wondering how that player will handle the scrutiny that comes with blazing an opulent trail.

The door has been kicked down and others will find the same path far easier to navigate.

We may still not see another seven-figure fee for some time, with the Women’s Super League transfer window set to shut on Thursday, alongside many other European circuits. Still, several players fit the criteria to warrant consideration for similar moves.

What factors into a player’s transfer value? A player’s current contract status is vital. If they’re in the final year of their deal, their valuation will plummet as clubs wait to see if they can soon sign the player on a free transfer. A team typically pays for a player’s future performance instead of their past exploits, explaining the absence of more veteran stars such as Ada Hegerberg, Lindsey Horan and Wendie Renard, to name a few when looking for the next big move.

Additionally, it’s worth emphasizing performance at club level regardless of their play for a national team. While a player’s international status is no doubt a factor, it would be hard for someone to get a good return on investment if they save their best work for a national team.

There are also self-explanatory elements to consider: a player’s track record of injuries, their marketability, and their quality compared to other players at their position.

Girma checked most, if not all, of those boxes for Chelsea. Here are more players who could be similarly poised to follow in her million-dollar footsteps:

USWNT’s added shine

By signing Girma, Chelsea has added a player who is likely to be a pillar of the most successful team in international women’s soccer for years to come. The USWNT’s top players have always had interest beyond their domestic league, from Alex Morgan’s time with Lyon and Tottenham to Horan’s continued importance to Lyon. Despite the United States’ return to the top of the FIFA rankings after a successful Olympics, however, only a couple of Girma’s international teammates project to fit the mold for a $1million move.

Sophia Smith signed a contract extension last spring, keeping her with the Portland Thorns through the 2025 NWSL season with an option for 2026. Functionally, that option gives the Thorns leverage if any suitors call about their star striker’s availability. Portland is due for an evolution, as club legends Becky Sauerbrunn and Christine Sinclair both retired after the 2024 season, and a lucrative fee could speed up those rebuilding efforts. Smith has also assumed Morgan’s mantle as a marketable figure, featuring alongside her former international strike partner in commercials during last summer’s Olympics. Having only turned 24 in August, Smith also projects to have room to grow as a striker while immediately being a strong scorer and facilitator at present.

Trinity Rodman is nearing the end of her contract with the Washington Spirit, having signed a four-year pact at the start of the 2022 season. Rodman won’t turn 23 until mid-May and has already established herself alongside Smith and Mallory Swanson as a focal point of the USWNT. Rodman has plenty of charisma that will help with marketability, but her skill set adds even more value. Her on-ball prowess often fills highlight reels and keeps crowds engaged, but her off-ball movement and selfless defensive work are as vital in projecting how she could fit with a new team.

As for Swanson, it’s unlikely she would command a similar fee to Girma or even Rodman or Smith. Swanson has a longer injury record than the other two-thirds of “Triple Espresso” and her new contract with the Chicago Stars was inked in the wake of her husband, shortstop Dansby Swanson, signing a seven-year, $177million contract with the Chicago Cubs.

Signing for the future

Potential can be a dangerous gamble for investment until it pays off, but Linda Caicedo (19), Olivia Smith (20) and Lily Yohannes (17) are the headline acts when it comes to young stars who could command seven-figure sums.

Caicedo, currently under contract with Real Madrid until 2027, established herself as a household name at the 2023 World Cup thanks to the Colombia international’s technical skills and disregard for established orders. Her numbers, too, provide substance: five goals and four assists in 26 Liga F appearances last season, three goals and two assists in 11 this season, plus three in the Champions League.

Smith, meanwhile, knows the requirements for demanding big fees, becoming Liverpool Women’s record transfer at £210,000 ($261,000) last summer. She is tenacious off the ball, has great technique in front of goal and her ability to adapt to new challenges makes her an enticing prospect. In two years, the Canada striker has gone from the American college system to establishing herself as Liverpool’s biggest goal threat in the WSL.

Yohannes is almost too easy of a choice. The Ajax midfielder’s decision to commit her international future to the U.S. last year made global headlines, and rightly so. The coup felt like the international soccer equivalent of a million-dollar transfer. It is one thing to have composure on the ball and an eye for the spectacular, it’s another to have it all at such a young age.

As the women’s game grows, the marketability of these young players plays a commensurably important role. Caicedo has 197,000 Instagram followers, Smith is the face of the Liverpool women’s team, while Yohannes’ commercial value as a future USWNT star speaks for itself.

Ajax, Real Madrid and Liverpool wield significant brand heft, yet much of it derives from legacies in the men’s game. That leaves room for established behemoths in the women’s game — Barcelona, Lyon and Chelsea — to swoop, but they would need to pay up.

Elite goalscorers

Before Girma’s move, this was the demographic that seemed most likely to yield a million-dollar move. For teams that are one top-class striker away from achieving their dreams, the solution is a costly one.

Bunny Shaw does not get the credit she deserves among the world’s best strikers. Since joining Manchester City in 2021, Shaw has made the WSL her playground. Her accomplishments are staggering: 20 goals in the 2022-23 season; 21 goals and the Golden Boot award in the 2023-24 season; the first player to record three WSL hat-tricks in a calendar year (2023); and the second-fastest to reach 50 goals (doing so in 57 games). The 27-year-old Jamaica international’s importance is most visible in her absence. A season-ending ankle injury in April coincided with City losing the 2023-24 WSL title to Chelsea on goal difference on the final day. A knee injury sustained in December has left her on nine goals and one assist in 10 games and City trailing Chelsea.

The recent injuries are necessary considerations for any million-dollar conversation, yet Shaw’s reliability in front of goal could keep her among the most coveted center forwards in the world.

Barbra Banda was an unstoppable force in the opening half of her first NWSL season. After debuting for the Orlando Pride in late April, Banda played her way onto the NWSL Best XI with 13 goals and six assists in the regular season. She sustained her excellence when it mattered most, scoring four goals in three games as Orlando won its first NWSL title, including the lone goal in the final against Washington. She’s a highly rated player who won’t turn 25 until April. Although she has three years left on her deal, she’s already achieved nearly everything a player can in the NWSL. Might the possibility of the UEFA Women’s Champions League be enough to entice her to move in time?

While Banda was the early season standout, Temwa Chawinga ultimately won MVP honors in what was arguably the best individual season in league history. She became the first NWSL player to score 20 goals in a single season, finishing the regular season with 20 goals and six assists. Chawinga turned 26 in September and is projected to have plenty of fine years ahead of her. Kansas City announced they extended Chawinga’s contract to run through 2028, which increases the likelihood of her departure requiring a sizable transfer fee.

Although the Premiére Ligue is often a two-team race between Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon, Paris FC currently enjoys rostering the league’s top scorer. That’s often the recipe for an active auction of interested suitors and Clara Matéo fits the profile of a player who could be coveted by the French giants as well as the rest of the UWCL’s usual suite of contenders. Matéo joined Paris in 2016 and has scored 71 goals in 175 league appearances over the ensuing near-decade.

Matéo had also become a regular with Les Bleues in 2022 and 2023, making France’s squad at the 2023 Women’s World Cup but missing out on their 2024 Olympic roster. Given the competition at her position, parlaying her career-best year into a move to a bigger club could make sense for all parties if the price is right.

An offer that can’t be refused

The thing about record transfers is that players also need to want to leave their current ecosystems. That is largely the reason the likes of Barcelona duo Aitana Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas, and Lyon’s Tabitha Chawinga, have not commanded seven-figure sums.

Let’s call it the symbiosis of the Super Club. It feels almost gratuitous to explain why Bonmatí — the 27-year-old midfield architect of Spain’s 2023 World Cup triumph and a two-time Ballon d’Or winner — deserves to be a million-dollar transfer, or why two-time Ballon d’Or winner Putellas would command such a sum. Both players’ trophy cabinets have most likely been converted into small chateaus by now.

Likewise, Chawinga has established herself as one of the most formidable attacking forces in the game, finishing the 2023/2024 season as the MVP of the Premiére Ligue while on loan with PSG from Wuhan Jianghan University. The 28-year-old Malawian international’s move to Michele Kang’s OL Féminin in 2024 on a three-year deal last summer was a testament to her quality.

Would these players win more elsewhere? Barcelona has laid claim to the Liga F title for five successive seasons and are nailed on to do so again. Lyon have lost the league just once in the past 18 seasons. In the past nine seasons, European Champions League glory has belonged exclusively to these two clubs (Lyon winning six, Barcelona winning three). Chelsea are breaking transfer records to bridge the gap to these clubs.

Unless a new challenger, such as Chelsea, Arsenal or Manchester City, arrives with bags of money to burn and promises of European glory, the likelihood is that players such as Bonmatí, Putellas, Chawinga and others will be content where they are.

What could have been…

One of the idiosyncrasies of the women’s game is the high turnover of elite players on free transfers despite their potential for record-breaking moves. Consider Arsenal forward Alessia Russo (who left Manchester United on a free in 2023), Lyon goalkeeper Mary Earps (who left United on a free in 2024) and, for this summer, Barcelona midfielder Keira Walsh.

The Spanish giants signed Walsh from Manchester City in 2022 for a then-world record fee of £400,000. Last September, Arsenal had a world-record fee (Spanish media reported it was worth £930,000) rejected, despite the England international informing the club that she does not intend to renew her contract this summer. In an alternative universe, Walsh — one of the best defensive midfielders in the women’s game — would, rightly, demand a high transfer fee.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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