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07/17 12:56 CDT Arsenal pays world record women's soccer transfer fee to sign Olivia Smith from Liverpool Arsenal pays world record women's soccer transfer fee to sign Olivia Smith from Liverpool By JAMES ROBSON AP Soccer Writer Olivia Smith became the most expensive player in women's soccer history Thursday when she joined Arsenal from Liverpool for a world record transfer fee of 1 million pounds ($1.34 million). The new benchmark in women's soccer surpasses the 900,000 pounds ($1.1 million) Chelsea paid for Naomi Girma from San Diego Wave in January. The 20-year-old Canada forward signed a four-year deal, a person with knowledge of the contract told The Associated Press. The person, who also confirmed the record fee, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the full details of the transfer have not been made public. Smith's deal highlights the rapid increase in spending in women's soccer with transfer records regularly broken in recent years. Zambia striker Racheal Kundananji set a new record when joining Bay FC from Madrid CFF for $788,000 last year, and that figure was quickly exceeded by Girma's move to Chelsea, becoming the first $1 million women's soccer player. As recently as 2020, the most expensive women's player was Denmark's Pernille Harder, who joined Chelsea from Wolfsburg for $355,000. England's Keira Walsh left Manchester City for Barcelona in 2022 for a deal worth $513,000, and Chelsea broke the record again in 2024 when signing Mayra Ramirez from Levante for $542,000. But those figures are still a long way behind the men's game where Neymar remains the record signing following his 2017 move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for $262 million. Kylian Mbappe joined PSG for $216 million and is the second most expensive player of all time. After one season at Penn State, Smith joined Sporting Lisbon in 2023 and scored 16 goals in 28 appearances. She moved to Liverpool last year and scored nine times in 25 games. Smith is also Canada's youngest international after making her debut at 15 in 2019. "Olivia is an exciting young player and we believe she can make a big contribution here at Arsenal," head coach Renee Slegers said. "We've been impressed by her mentality and character, excelling in two European leagues at such a young age." Arsenal is a 15-time English champion and won the Champions League for the second time in its history last season. Despite Chelsea being the dominant force in women's soccer in England, Arsenal is the only English team to win the Champions League. "It's my dream to compete for the biggest titles here in England and in Europe and I'm excited to get started and contribute to doing that here with Arsenal," Smith said. ___ James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson ___ AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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