Chelsea break $1m barrier to sign USA defender Girma in world-record deal

The United States defender Naomi Girma is set to have a medical at Chelsea this week after agreeing personal terms to join from San Diego Wave for a world-record fee. Chelsea will pay $1.1m (£890,000), the first women’s football transfer fee to exceed a million US dollars.

The Guardian understands Chelsea have agreed a long-term contract with Girma and she is set to travel to London for a medical with Sonia Bompastor’s side, who are seven points clear at the top of the Women’s Super League at the halfway stage.

The fee comfortably surpasses the record, of about $860,000, paid by the American club Bay FC to sign the Zambia forward Racheal Kundananji from Madrid CFF in February 2024.

It is also more than double the record for a signing made by an English women’s club, paid by Chelsea for the Colombia striker Mayra Ramírez last January. That was understood to be €450,000 (£384,000 at the time) plus up to €50,000 in add-ons.

Girma, a 24-year-old centre-back, was also a key transfer target for the French club Lyon, who reportedly made a $1m bid, but it is understood Chelsea have been her preferred destination. She will link up there with her fellow US internationals Catarina Macario and Mia Fishel.

Girma has been with San Diego Wave since 2022 and was under contract with the NWSL side until 2026. She has 44 caps and has scored twice for her country, for whom she made her debut in 2022. In 2023 she was US Soccer’s women’s player of the year.

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In August the former Chelsea manager Emma Hayes described Girma as the best defender she had “ever seen”. Girma played a key role to help Hayes’s side win gold at the Olympics in Paris. It was the fifth time the US had won the Olympic title.

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