JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Naomi Girma and the English club Chelsea FC made history this week.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Girma is the start offender for the U.S. Women's National Soccer team. She's gripped the attention of fans worldwide. And this week, The Athletic reported that she would be leaving her team San Diego FC here in the U.S. to sign with Chelsea. That move is not just a big deal for Chelsea, which is getting one of the best defenders in the world...
SUMMERS: Girma's transfer fee will be north of $1 million. It's the first time in history that a transfer fee for a women's soccer player has been that high.
SHAPIRO: Now, if you're not a soccer aficionado, a transfer fee is the money one team pays to another club to sign a player.
MEG LINEHAN: Chelsea went out and said, who's one of the best players in the world that we can get right now, and how much do we need to be able to afford her? And it turns out the answer is over a million dollars.
SHAPIRO: That's Meg Linehan, a senior writer for The Athletic. She says the high transfer fee for Girma is part of a broader trend of increased investment in women's soccer.
LINEHAN: Now what we're seeing is there is this whole new group of ownership and investors and players, even, coming in who don't have this kind of scarcity mindset.
SUMMERS: She says not only are teams spending more money to acquire players, investors are pouring more cash into women's soccer in general.
LINEHAN: They're coming in and saying, well, why aren't we being ambitious? Why aren't we spending money? Why aren't we investing money and just going out and doing it?
SHAPIRO: For context here, last summer, over $6 billion were spent on transfer fees for male players compared to just $6 million for women players, according to The Athletic.
SUMMERS: Linehan says that while the money spent on Girma's transfer is a good sign for parity between men and women's soccer players, the next big step is advocating for higher salaries.
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