London City Lionesses break women’s football transfer record after completing Grace Geyoro signing from PSG.
London City Lionesses break women’s football transfer record with £1.43m Geyoro signing.
The Guardian has learnt that the London City Lionesses have smashed the global record for a women’s football transfer by paying €1.65 million (£1.43 million) to recruit France midfielder Grace Geyoro from Paris Saint-Germain.
The 28-year-old has become the third player to shatter the world record in the women’s game in less than two months, and the transaction, which is thought to have gone to the wire on Thursday, was finalised before the Women’s Super League transfer window closed at 11 p.m. BST.
It comes after Lizbeth Ovalle’s $1.5 million (£1.1 million) move from Mexican team Tigres to the American club Orlando Pride and Olivia Smith’s £1 million move from Liverpool to Arsenal in mid-July, which was the first to surpass the £1 million threshold. With their owner, Michele Kang, giving them spending power, the London City Lionesses are showing off their prowess in the transfer market. The National Women’s Soccer League team Washington Spirit and the French champions OL Lyonnes are also owned by the American businesswoman.
Since being promoted from the second division, London City has made a number of high-profile acquisitions in this first window. On Thursday, they added the Spain youth international winger Lucía Corrales, the England attacker Nikita Parris, and the Netherlands midfielder Daniëlle van de Donk.
The fee for Geyoro was described as “crazy” by the Manchester United manager, Marc Skinner. “If we’re being really honest, the window has gone crazy, right?” Skinner said. “I’m just hearing about the Grace Geyoro move, like, that is crazy. The window and the market has just shifted so much.”
Skinner went on to name the transfers of Geyoro, Ovalle, Smith and Chelsea’s Alyssa Thompson. “Who would have thought that in this window, we’d have four £1m players? I just think we [Manchester United] won’t be able to, right now, go to those levels of transfer fee. I’ll be honest with that. We’re not in that realm.
“There’ll be pressure on London City now to deliver and then you’ve got to deliver under pressure, because you spent big. We’ll see how they do with that.”