A week before she broke the women’s world transfer record on Feb. 14, Racheal Kundananji was trying to carry on her life as normal, knowing that talks were ongoing between her club, Madrid CFF, and NWSL expansion franchise Bay FC. She was out for dinner in Madrid when an urgent meeting popped up on her phone’s calendar; she headed back to her apartment immediately, but delays on the metro meant she arrived 15 minutes late.
When she logged on, she joined a video call that spanned three continents: herself in Europe; her agent, Chris Atkins, in Hong Kong; and Bay FC general manager Lucy Rushton in Santa Barbara, California, at a preseason camp. It was then that Rushton took a deep breath and told the 23-year-old Zambia international that her €735,000 ($787k) move to NWSL would set a new benchmark for women’s game. Kundananji simply smiled and said thank you.
Discussions between Atkins, Madrid CFF and Bay FC had been going on for roughly eight weeks. The initial fee — with another €75k ($80k) in potential add-ons — easily surpassed the previous record of €450k ($500k) that Chelsea had paid Levante on Jan. 26 to sign Colombia forward Mayra Ramírez.
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Kundananji’s move saw the record edge toward the seven-figure barrier, while Orlando Pride signed her Zambia teammate Barbra Banda from Chinese Super League team Shanghai Shengli for $740k on Tuesday. But when will the $1m benchmark be broken? Amid all the unknowns, there is one common view among the players, sporting directors and agents we spoke to: It won’t be long.
“I think this summer we’ll have a $1 million player,” one agent said.
“That [Kundananji] deal has blown the market wide open,” a source told ESPN.
“We’ll see more transfers in the $500k, $600k, $700k mark, but it will take a one special player of the right kind of profile and age to decide to go all-in on, likely in the next year,” another agent said.
“It’ll definitely happen in the next 12 months, likely from an American franchise,” one club source said.
Jennifer Haskel, knowledge and insights lead in Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, told ESPN: “Women’s football and women’s sport in general is so nascent in its growth phase, it has to be in a ‘test and learn’ culture. So trying new things — whether that be business models in terms of revenue streams, or alignment with different sponsors, or across the transfer market because that is in such a nascent phase — means the sport can adapt and be a bit more agile.”
Jenny Mitton, managing partner and women’s sport lead at M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment, says: “There was a lovely analogy I heard: the sport is a bit like a teenager. It’s something great, and you think you’ve fixed something great, but you have to deal with another growth spurt or another problem. It’s all about balance.”
The 2023 FIFA Global Transfer Report published in January details the growth in the women’s transfer market. In 2018 there were 694 transfers in the women’s game across 218 clubs, of which 22 moves involved a fee. By 2023, this figure had increased to 1,888 transfers across 623 clubs, with 147 featuring a fee. The amount spent on transfer fees was $561k in 2018, $3.3m in 2022, and $6.1m in 2023.
Those within the game expect to see this figure increase again in 2024, especially given the record spending in January — a total of $2.1m spent, up 165.5% on the previous winter transfer window, with 0.3% more deals being done — and that excludes the €400k ($436k) Bayern Munich agreed to pay to sign Wolfsburg’s Lena Oberdorf in the summer.
“What’s caused it? Well it’s an accumulation of things, but a World Cup can shift the market because of the exposure the game gets,” Bay FC’s Rushton told ESPN. “Look at those lightning rod moments like the 60,000 attendances at Women’s Super League matches — they’re the moments that impact transfers and wages.”
