Inside the WSL's exploding transfer market, with Claire Rafferty

Upfront - A Women's Football Podcast

Stak Production

Girls Football, Womens World Cup, Chloe Kelly, Lionesses, Nwsl, Football, Womens Football, England Womens, Keira Walsh, Womens England Football, Sports, Leah Williamson, Soccer, Womens Sports, Womens Soccer, Female Sports

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2026

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Few people know the transfer market better than Claire Rafferty. In her role at TransferRoom, she's spoken to clubs all over Europe and beyond about what they want, who they want and (crucially) how much they want to pay or earn.

Claire joins Chloe and Rachel to reveal what's really going on in the transfer market: from commercially-driven signings, to the ever-growing number of Scandinavian players coming to the WSL, and the impact of no major tournament this summer.

And as the spending in women's football keeps rising, will the numbers just keep going up? Plus, Chloe wants to know her own transfer value.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Up Front. I'm Clay Morgan. And I'm Rachel Sullivan. On today's show, we are joined by Friend of the Pod and busiest person in women's sport right now, Claire Rafferty. Together we'll be discussing what has been a very busy January transfer window in the WSL and asking Claire to share some of her wisdom
0:21.2	and inside a knowledge, we definitely want to know this. I need to know who's going where,
0:26.0	what's happening, how much they're valued out and why. Since retiring, Claire has been a huge
0:30.6	part of transfer room, a marketplace for football transfers. So there's no better person to have
0:34.6	on the pod to chat the incomings, the outgoings and provide obviously
0:38.5	an expert view on it all. Welcome back, Claire. Hello. Go on the room as well. In the room.
0:46.7	Fantastic, lovely studio here. We had a guest like in the space. So, um, here we go. Yeah,
0:52.5	thank you for joining us, no worries. No worries.
0:54.2	It's a pleasure.
0:54.9	Especially since it's been,
0:55.8	it's been so busy for you.
0:57.3	But I feel like the last few weeks,
0:59.2	you've been linked
1:00.3	influencing like nobody's business.
1:03.0	Oh, yeah.
1:04.0	Talk to me about this.
1:05.2	Yeah, well,
1:05.7	you know,
1:05.9	if you could retreat, be really helpful. We've shared our awareness. Yeah, super, super busy.
1:11.8	Been meeting with, I think I've probably met
1:13.6	over the last two months
1:14.6	about 200 clubs.
	...

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