Chelsea reached an agreement Thursday with Angel City to acquire winger Alyssa Thompson for the richest transfer fee in women’s soccer history.
Thompson’s transfer fee is a record $1.65 million, a person with knowledge of the agreement not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Times. That amount surpasses the $1.3 million Arsenal paid Liverpool for Canadian Olivia Smith in July. That also tops the $1.5 million that Mexico’s Tigres received from the Orlando Pride for Lizbeth Ovalle last month.
Angel City declined to comment on Thompson’s status, with coach Alexander Straus refusing to even say her name, referring to Thompson as “a certain player” and “a certain transfer” in a conference call with reporters Thursday.
“Questions about a certain transfer or possible transfer, I don’t know,” he said. “This is not my table. I will not answer, I will not comment.”
To refresh Straus’ memory, Thompson is the club’s all-time scoring leader with 21 goals in all competitions and she ranks sixth in appearances with 74, while her six goals in 16 games this season ranks second behind Riley Tiernan’s eight. Thompson also has three goals and three assists in 22 games with the national team.
Chelsea, the most successful women’s team in English soccer, and Angel City, the most valuable women’s team in the U.S., have been discussing a transfer deal for Thompson for some time. Thompson was held out of Angel City’s win Sunday over Bay FC as the negotiations progressed. But then the talks hit a snag.
Thompson, who had already agreed to a five-year contract with Chelsea, said goodbye to her teammates last weekend and was prepared to fly to London to seal the deal Monday or Tuesday, only to turn away without boarding a plane. On Wednesday, she did fly out, arriving early Thursday, local time. She will undergo a physical before the transfer is completed.
Thompson is the third player to leave Angel City on a transfer to the WSL in less than a week, following midfielders Alanna Kennedy and Katie Zelem, who joined the London City Lionesses for undisclosed fees on Aug. 27.
Angel City has had one winning season and made just one playoff appearance since joining the NWSL four years ago, and Straus said the recent moves were made with the goal of improving the team over the long term.
“Some of these things have been in our hands. Some of it maybe not,” Straus said. “Of course it, on a short-term [basis], makes the situation a little bit challenging.
“It is a journey and we need to do the decisions that are going to get us to where we want to go. Over the last couple of years, we have not been where we want to be. So we need to do that.”
Thompson was a senior at the Harvard Westlake School when she became the youngest player taken in the NWSL draft, going to Angel City with the No. 1 pick in January 2023. That summer she became the second-youngest player to appear in a World Cup game for the U.S. She signed a three-year contract worth an estimated $1 million after the draft in 2023, then agreed to a three-year extension last January.
“I wanted to re-sign because I love L.A. so much and the community around me is amazing,” she said nine months ago. “Being able to play in my hometown in front of my friends and family is something that I never take for granted.”
For Thompson, 20, leaving Angel City would also mean leaving her sister and roommate Gisele, 19, a national team defender who was signed by Angel City in December 2023.
For Angel City (6-7-5), losing Thompson would strike a significant blow to the team’s playoff hopes. The club, which has won two straight and is unbeaten in its last four, is a point out of the league’s eighth and final postseason berth with eight games to play, but it has already been playing without Scottish international Claire Emslie, who is on maternity leave; defender Savy King, who is on medical leave; and U.S. World Cup champion Sydney Leroux, who has stepped away from soccer to deal with a mental health issue.
Now it is without its most exciting player and second-leading scorer.
“The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts,” Straus said. “When things happen, you need to be able to handle that. That’s how the world has moved forward. We need to deal with what we can control and we need to deal with where the situation is today.
“That’s the mentality that we have. This is the mentality that we have to have.”
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