Women's soccer clubs are shelling it out, as the 2025 Global Transfer Report from FIFA showed that women's pro team spending reached record highs last year.

Clubs spent a total of $28.6 million on a total of 2,440 international women's soccer transfers, marking a 6.3% year-over-year increase in the number of athletes, but a massive 83.6% bump in spending over 2024 — even without accounting for intra-league deals.

England led the pack on the 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report, dropping $11 million in fees while taking in $2.1 million in sales, followed by the NWSL's $7.9 million spent.

Notably, US players were in the highest demand at 240 transfers — more than double the 108 British athletes comprising the nationality coming in second.

Reigning WSL champions Chelsea FC sit atop the spending list, racking up high-profile signings like USWNT stars Naomi Girma and Alyssa Thompson.

US billionaire Michele Kang's London City Lionesses trail the Blues at No. 2 in just their first WSL season following last spring's promotion, with the also-Kang-owned French side OL Lyonnes clocking in at No. 3 on the transfer fee list.

Six NWSL teams made the Top 10, led by the Orlando Pride at No. 4, Utah Royals at No. 5, and Washington Spirit at No. 6 — with the Spirit also falling into Kang's portfolio.

France's Olympique Lyonnais is now OL Lyonnes, with team owner Michele Kang announcing the Lyon rebrand of the world's most successful women's soccer club on Monday.

In an effort to distance themselves further from the men's side while still paying homage to the team's home of Lyon, the now-independent club merged the word "lionne," French for lioness, with the city's name.

Along with the new name, OL Lyonnes has a refreshed crest, departing from the club's traditional lion and instead opting for a gold-crowned, blue- and yellow-maned red lioness posed mid-roar.

"This is not about just a name change and some graphic changes," Kang told reporters on Monday. "This is about giving the most successful women's team in the world its own platform, its own identity."

"We’re not a subset of the men's team. We are a standalone force."

New facilities to fuel continued OL Lyonnes dominance

The team, whose roster includes USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps, has a history of setting the standard for what's possible on the women's pitch.

The eight-time Champions League winners scored their 18th Division 1 Féminine championship in 19 years on Friday, boosting the 21-year-old club's tally to a world record-extending 39 titles.

Kang literally bought in on that success, purchasing the club last August, pulling it under the umbrella of her global multi-team organization Kynisca Sports International alongside the NWSL's Washington Spirit and newly promoted WSL side London City.

The rebrand is just one part of Kang's next steps with OL Lyonnes, with the billionaire investor also committing to financing the renovation of the club's boys' academy training facilities to turn them into a new performance center designed specifically for women's soccer athletes.

While the club is aiming for a July 2026 opening of that training center, OL Lyonnes will have a more immediate upgrade for matchdays, with Kang stating that all future games will take place in the 59,186-seat Groupama Stadium — a venue with nearly 39 times the capacity of the nearby 1,524-seat Stade Gérard Houllier that served as the team's primary home pitch.

"From day one, I was impressed with how the women's team has achieved this kind of success with the amount of resources that was available to them," said Kang during the Monday announcement.

"The best team in the world... playing the majority of games at a training center. It is unfitting," Kang told the Associated Press. "We want our fans to be part of our journey, part of our community and you can't achieve fan engagement by constantly switching back and forth."