Barcelona SMASH women's football transfer WORLD RECORD with Keira Walsh signing
Barcelona have made Keira Walsh the most expensive player in women’s football history after completing a £400,000 deal to sign her from Manchester City.
The midfielder has penned a three-year deal with the Catalan side and smashes the £250k record previously set by Pernille Harder in 2020.
Walsh had requested to leave City after entering the final year of her deal and Chelsea had made an offer for her before Barcelona finally had a bid accepted.
Walsh won the European Championships with England this summer, playing all but five minutes of the tournament, and won the player of the match award in the final against Germany.
The 25-year-old links up with fellow England international Lucy Bronze, who also moved from City to Barca earlier in the year.
Walsh has been capped 50 times by England and made 211 appearances for City in all competitions in her eight seasons at the club, scoring nine times.
Harder: I’m happy to lose transfer record
Danish midfielder Harder joined Chelsea in 2020 for a record fee but the 29-year-old insisted she was ‘happy’ to lose her record because of what it meant for Women’s football.
‘It’s totally fine, I’m happy that it [transfer fees] keeps getting higher,’ Harder said.
‘That’s what I wanted, I wanted to start something new. To start in women’s football, that you could actually buy players as well. I’m really good with that.’
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— FC Barcelona Femení (@FCBfemeni) September 7, 2022
‘It’s a good development for women’s football that players don’t have to play their contracts out but they can actually get sold and the clubs can actually get something out of the players, so it’s a development.
‘I think it’s good for women’s football to get the money rolling, you could say it like that, but it shows that it just keeps developing, women’s football.’