U.S. women’s soccer defender Naomi Gilma has completed her move from the San Diego Wave to Chelsea, becoming the most expensive transfer in women’s soccer history.
Competitor Earlier this week, Chelsea had agreed terms with the Tide for a record transfer fee of $1.1 million for Gilma, according to unnamed sources with knowledge of the negotiations.
The 24-year-old is contracted to Santiago until 2026, which is why the deal comes with a fee, making her the first women’s soccer player worth over $1 million.
The deal surpasses the previous record of €735,000 Bay FC paid for Zambian forward Racheal Kundananji from CFF Madrid in February 2024.
Gilma has attracted significant interest from elsewhere in Europe, with eight-time European champions Lyon also making a $1 million bid.
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“I’m happy and excited to be here,” Gilma told Chelsea’s website. “It doesn’t feel real.
“There are a lot of things about Chelsea that made me want to come here – the culture, the winning mentality, the staff and the players. It’s a top-notch environment to learn and grow.
“Right now, this is what I want to do. It was an easy choice for me.
Gilma on the pitch at Stamford Bridge ahead of the Women’s Super League match against Arsenal (Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)
The Waves are preparing to lose the linebacker through the 2025 season, signing 17-year-old Trinity Armstrong out of the University of North Carolina to a three-year deal last week.
Girma joins the Wave as the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NWSL draft after playing collegiately at Stanford. She was named NWSL Defender of the Year in 2022 and 2023 and won the NWSL Shield in 2023 with the Wave.
Chelsea have now added further depth at centre-back after losing Canadian international Kadeisha Buchanan to an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in December.
Sonia Bompasto’s side lead the Women’s Super League and have reached the knockout stages of the Champions League – a competition they are yet to win.
Analysis by The Athletic senior football writer Jeff Rueter
When Team USA wins Olympic gold in 2024, Gilma’s praise will be as loud as that of the team’s offensive trio of Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson.
Even as modern metrics continue to advance, it’s difficult to quantify how valuable a defender is with numbers. Instead, a combination of data, eye tests, and expert endorsements helped us understand one thing: Gilma was quickly moving into the top echelons of her position.
“She’s the best defender I’ve ever seen,” former Chelsea coach Emma Hayes, head coach of the U.S. team, said after the Olympic semifinal victory over Germany. “Once. She had it all: she was calm, she was cool, she defended, she predicted, she led.
Gilma completed more passes than any other player in Germany’s victory. Whenever Germany’s attacking players approached the final third, she locked in on them. She carried the ball 687 meters, accounting for 24% of the total distance covered by the U.S. women’s soccer team, providing critical time for teammates to run without the ball.
Currently, Gilma is in a unique position. According to many, she is the best player at her position in the global women’s game. That status also allows her to be part of the broader conversation about the sport’s greatest athletes. In that regard, she’s well on her way to becoming one of the best players in U.S. women’s soccer history.
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How does Gilma’s transfer fee compare to others in women’s football?
Gilma’s transfer fee marks the fourth time in less than three years that the women’s transfer record has been broken. In 2024, it was destroyed twice in one month.
This also marks the third time Chelsea has signed a player for a record transfer fee for women, following the signing of Meira Ramires from Levante in 2022 and Pernille Harder from Wolfsburg in 2020. .
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Analysis by Michael Cox, tactics writer for The Athletic
Usually, it takes a few games to get the most out of a centre-back, but there’s something different about Gilma. She is an excellent reader of the game, adept at covering space behind the ball, able to play physical without relying on her body, and she appears to be a well-rounded defender.
Perhaps the only thing she lacks is true air superiority. At 1.68m (5ft 6in) she is not a tall presence and she won just 51.5% of her aerial battles in the NWSL last season, not a particularly reassuring figure for a centre-back. But the fact that she dominates her own zone despite her relative lack of aerial power almost adds to her aura.
It also speaks to the overall growth of the women’s game. The men’s game has gradually moved away from long balls and crosses, while the women’s game has developed in a different way, based more on ground attack through technique or speed. For example, compared with the Premier League, the Women’s Super League has only about 75% of the number of empty games.
Of course, being the most valuable footballer in the world doesn’t mean being the best footballer outright. Despite this, the centre-back still feels unusually prominent. Even before Gilma’s transfer, 10 of the top 50 most expensive transfers in women’s football involved defenders, while only six of the top 50 most expensive transfers in men’s football involved defenders.
This time, the next generation of football players may just want to play defense when they grow up.
(Top photo: Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images)
