Sam Coffey’s Man City move is another blow for a hamstrung NWSL | NWSL

Sam Coffey’s move from the Portland Thorns to Manchester City marks a turning point: more than half of the USWNT’s starting lineup that won the 2024 Olympic gold medal now plays their professional football in Europe. If free agent Trinity Rodman also signs overseas, that will leave just four players from that roster on NWSL rosters to begin the domestic season.

The distribution of where USWNT players compete has changed dramatically under Emma Hayes. So many star players headed to European Goliaths, including Hayes’ former club Chelsea, that last year she had to assure the NWSL board of governors that she was not pushing her athletes to leave the league, according to an ESPN report. Hayes insists she simply supports her players’ aspirations, whatever they may be. Now, of the seven players with the most USWNT minutes in 2025, only two of them – Emily Sonnett and Claire Hutton – are playing in the United States.

Coffey’s departure is the icing on the cake; The 27-year-old midfielder and Portland captain has earned more USWNT minutes than any other player in 2025. And the price of her transfer – estimated to be around $800,000 (£600,000) – shows that European teams are willing and able to shell out for talent in their prime up and down the US roster, not just ultra-famous scorers. (Defender Naomi Girma’s $1.1 million move to Chelsea from San Diego Wave beats Coffey’s, but her reputation was bigger than Coffey’s is now.)

As the United States strengthens under Hayes, NWSL observers are sounding the alarm about the state of the league. If America’s best players can now play wherever they want, why do so many want to play far from home?

The fact that the NWSL is moving away from the center of the USWNT ecosystem is notable given the league’s origins. The United States Soccer Federation (USSF) was the driving force behind its creation; When the league was launched, the federation had a management role and paid the full salaries of the 24 national team players. These players soon had no choice but to play in the NWSL; Christen Press, for example, spoke of being forced by US Soccer to leave her Swedish club, Tyresö FF, to join the Chicago Red Stars, a team she did not want to play for.

The federation’s efforts to keep the USWNT in the United States were successful for the better part of a decade. Every player on the U.S. World Cup rosters in 2015 and 2019 played in the NWSL except Abby Wambach, who was unattached. National team players have had stints in European leagues, but these have always been single stints rather than multi-year transfers.

This lasted until Jill Ellis left her role as head coach of the USWNT in 2019. From there, American soccer changed its tone and star players, such as Lindsey Heaps and Catarina Macario, began flocking to Europe. In 2021 – the same year that US Soccer left its role running the league – the change in philosophy came to fruition with the federation ending its payment of USWNT player salaries in the NWSL.

In 2023, US Soccer reaffirmed its change of direction by hiring Hayes to succeed Vlatko Andonovski. In Hayes, the federation has chosen a head coach from the English Women’s Super League, known for recruiting players from around the world. His selection for the top job proved that the federation was looking to embrace the global game, and was no longer determined to prioritize NWSL play above all else.

Since then, a more mature NWSL has been left to its own devices, and European clubs have some things that NWSL clubs don’t. The legacy, for example, most aspiring professionals who watched club football growing up would probably have watched the flashier men’s leagues, those in Europe. Being able to wear the legendary Arsenal or Manchester City badge is undoubtedly enticing. “Ever since I was playing ball, I’ve always dreamed of playing professional soccer in Europe, and it’s something I just have to pursue,” Coffey said in a farewell video released by the Thorns.

With this inheritance comes money. In Europe, clubs make most of their profits from their men’s teams and are able to spend more money on women’s salaries than NWSL clubs, given that American teams are hamstrung by the league’s paltry salary cap. That’s not to say that’s always the case – seismic transfers have mostly been limited to a few big clubs. But the fact that Europe’s most successful clubs began paying huge transfer fees to acquire the one they had their eye on was more than enough to shake up the NWSL. For the Chelseas and Lyons of the world, their ambitions have caught up their freedom, and even the most ambitious NWSL clubs cannot compete with them in the global market.

Once the NWSL stole American soccer’s nest, the league had the opportunity to enjoy some of the freedom enjoyed by the rest of the world. But recent events have highlighted how the NWSL seems unable to catch up with the reality that it is responsible for its own destiny. In December, Commissioner Jessica Berman thwarted a contract between Rodman and the Washington Spirit, which anticipated future growth in league revenue and reimbursed a significant salary. Shortly afterward, the league announced the perplexing “high-impact player rule,” which increases the salary cap only for qualified players under a list of criteria heavily biased in favor of European players, inadvertently endorsing Europe as the most desirable destination for players looking to improve their game. The NWSL Players Association vehemently opposes this rule. (Hayes, for her part, said she was not informed of plans for the rule before its announcement and would not change the way it operates in response to it.)

Essentially, NWSL clubs that actually want to pursue similar ambitions to Chelsea and Barcelona are hampered by being in a league that wants to both have their hands in everything and be responsible for nothing.

This is not to say that the NWSL lacks strong players. This offseason has seen countless signings of top college prospects and exciting internationals, with the latter group particularly led by creative additions to expansion side Boston Legacy. Heaps’ return to the NWSL – where she was named MVP in 2018 – after a long spell in France is a sign that the league is attractive even to top talent. And beyond established USWNT veterans like Heaps, the NWSL remains a vital part of developing the national team’s player pool. But the league is now just one tool in the U.S. national team’s toolbox, not the toolbox itself.

The flow of players between continents shows that increased investment in women’s soccer has become common enough around the world that instead of one league being the primary destination for top players, as the NWSL was for some time, a more robust market is forming, with different leagues offering different benefits to players. That many players want to try different leagues shouldn’t come as a shock. There are too many elite athletes in the world for any single league to be worth watching. It remains to be seen, however, whether the NWSL will be completely bypassed in terms of appeal by the major European leagues. Ultimately, this outcome depends on itself.

US Soccer has moved beyond control of the NWSL, but the league acts as if its hands are still tied on key issues. The sooner the league can rid itself of its ghosts, the sooner it too can look to the future.