Angel City star forward Alyssa Thompson is heading overseas in the latest blow England’s WSL has dealt to the NWSL.
The NWSL club has officially announced the transfer of Thompson to Chelsea; the WSL team will pay Angel City around £1 million (between $1.3 million and $1.45 million) with potential add-ons, reports The Athletic, adding that the forward has agreed to a five-year contract. The outgoing transfer fee sets a record for the NWSL, but the reported fee falls short of the $1.5 million record for a women’s soccer transfer, set recently in the Orlando Pride’s acquisition of Lizbeth Ovalle.
Thompson’s departure is significant hit to both the Los Angeles club and the NWSL. The 20-year-old was one of the league’s top young talents, drafted No. 1 overall by Angel City as an 18-year-old—just months before she made the roster for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Her six NWSL goals this season, including a game-winning goal against Orlando on Aug. 21, are tied for seventh in the league.
Thompson is an LA native and was playing alongside her younger sister, 19-year-old Gisele, at Angel City. The Thompson sisters have been viewed as a huge part of ACFC’s young core and long-term vision for success, with Alyssa having the markings of an enduring face of the franchise. The sisters have also been active on the sponsorship scene, including deals with Toca Football (in which they have equity), NYX Professional Makeup and Stifel Financial Corp. In 2022, the pair signed Nike’s first high school NIL deal.
Earlier this week, The Guardian’s Tom Garry reported that Angel City and the NWSL were “reluctant” to see Thompson transfer and that it was the forward’s desire for an agreement to be reached.
Despite holding Sportico’s highest valuation in the NWSL at $250 million, ACFC has struggled to find its footing since its debut in 2022, making the playoffs just once and currently sitting in ninth place. In January, Angel City attempted to secure both sisters for the foreseeable future by signing the duo to contract extensions through 2028. CBS Sports reported at the time that both Alyssa and Gisele “garnered interest from European clubs” ahead of those deals being signed. Financial terms were not reported, but the NWSL team salary cap for 2025 is $3.3 million, set to go up to $5.1 million by 2030.
As a WSL club, Chelsea is not limited by a hard salary cap. That financial flexibility combined with an influx of investment on the women’s side has made Europe’s biggest women’s clubs an increasingly attractive option for American talent. And after England won the 2025 Women’s Euros, the domestic league stands ready for more substantial growth.
At the 2023 World Cup, only one U.S. player—Lindsey Heaps—was playing domestically in Europe, with the other 22 on the roster playing in the NWSL. Just two years later, there are now nine players from February’s SheBelieves Cup U.S. roster on clubs in Europe: Thompson, Naomi Girma and Catarina Macario (Chelsea); Heaps, Korbin Shrader and Lily Yohannes (France’s OL Lyonnes); Emily Fox and Jenna Nighswonger (England’s Arsenal); and Crystal Dunn (France’s PSG). Of that list, three (Macario, Shrader and Yohannes) have never played in the NWSL. A 10th player, goalie Phallon Tullis-Joyce, signed with Manchester United in 2023 and received her first USWNT cap in April 2025.
For years, USWNT players said they were discouraged by U.S. Soccer from playing abroad in an effort to stabilize and grow the NWSL after its launch in 2013. U.S. Soccer managed the NWSL until 2021, including paying the club salaries of allocated U.S. national team players. As the governing body’s grip on the league loosened, so did the idea that U.S. players needed to stay home. And with a rise in pro salaries making skipping college more commonplace for America’s teenage prospects, the landscape has further shifted and opened up.
Thompson, who turned down a spot at Stanford to go pro, has 22 caps for the U.S. women’s national team, coached by former Chelsea boss Emma Hayes. The crossover extends beyond players: Alexis Ohanian, who was Angel City’s founding controlling owner and still sits on the LA team’s board, bought an 8-10% stake in Chelsea’s women’s side earlier this year and also sits on the English club’s board.
For Angel City, Thompson’s exit is another frustrating chapter in the club’s young history. Following Willow Bay and Bob Iger’s purchase last year, the organization has taken multiple steps to overhaul its on-field performance, appointing former NWSL coach Mark Parsons as its sporting director in January, hiring Bayern Munich’s Alexander Straus as its coach in April (he officially took over in June) and opening a new training performance center at the start of preseason. But after a positive start to the 2025 season, the club stumbled, recently snapping an eight-game winless streak. With the elder Thompson out the door, the turnaround gets even tougher, and fans likely even more impatient.
It’s not all doom and gloom for the NWSL. The league continues to attract its own international talent, and had 18 players represented in this summer’s Euros, triple the amount from 2022. Four of the NWSL’s top five scorers this season are from outside the U.S., including league-leader Esther González (Spain) and 2024 MVP Temwa Chawinga (Malawi). But as the battle between the NWSL and WSL for the title of women’s soccer’s top league rages, Thompson’s move across the pond won’t be the last salvo fired.
(Updated in the second paragraph with additional details about the transfer fee.)
