Canada’s Olivia Smith (23) makes her way around Haiti’s Chelsea Domond (17) during a match in Winnipeg, in May. Referring to Ms. Smith’s world record £1-million move from Liverpool to Arsenal, former coach Marko Milanovic says the player ‘was always destined to do something like this.’JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
Marko Milanovic can still vividly recall the moment he first saw Olivia Smith kick a soccer ball.
He was coaching a boys team in north Toronto and he’d just finished packing up from a game. As he headed to the parking lot, Mr. Milanovic looked over at an under-11 girls match that had started.
“I see this girl make this diagonal switch, like 40 yards,” he said, referring to a cross-field pass. “Perfect backspin, just incredible technique. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s unusual for this age group.’ So I stayed and I watched the whole game, and that’s the first time I saw her play.”
A couple of years later, Ms. Smith joined a girls team Mr. Milanovic coached and she immediately made her mark. She scored 40 goals in 16 games and netted five in one game. “She scored a left-footed shot, a right-footed shot, a header, a free kick and a volley,” he said.
Mr. Milanovic now coaches AFC Toronto of the Northern Super League but the two have kept in touch as Ms. Smith’s career skyrocketed.
Last week, the 20-year-old made headlines by becoming the first female player to command a £1-million transfer fee, or $1.84-million, after signing with Arsenal of England’s Women’s Super League. (Transfer fees are paid by the new team to the old team as compensation for letting the player out of their contract early.) The terms of her salary, which would be negotiated separately, were not disclosed.
Average pay in the WSL is about £47,000 a year. Sam Kerr, a striker for Chelsea, is believed to be the highest-paid player at £449,000 a season.
“I knew she was always destined to do something like this,” Mr. Milanovic said. “The biggest transfer ever. I don’t know if I was expecting that, but we knew she was going to be good.”
Smith (center) takes part in a training session. In 2019, at the age of 15, she became the youngest player to make a debut for the Canadian national team after receiving a call-up to play at a tournament in China.WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images
The fee pales in comparison with the men’s game, where even average players can cost tens of millions of dollars. But it marked an important milestone for women’s soccer, which has been growing in popularity.
The WSL’s average attendance climbed 31 per cent last season to 7,363, and total revenue jumped by a third to £65-million. All but one of the WSL’s 12 teams are affiliated with Premier League or Championship League clubs, and most play in the same venue as the men.
In a sign of the league’s newfound status, Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, recently bought a 10-per-cent stake in WSL leader Chelsea for £20-million and vowed to build “the best team in the world.”
“This will be a billion-dollar franchise one day,” Mr. Ohanian boasted.
The success has driven transfers fees ever higher and it was only a matter of time before the £1-million ceiling was smashed. The record has been broken three times in the past 18 months and few expect it to remain at this level for long.
“It’s always good to get a new record. I think it does generate a lot of interest,” said Kieran Maguire, a professor at the University of Liverpool who specializes in soccer finance. He added that the WSL “is still in that initial growth phase. So it allows the WSL to say to players in other women’s leagues: ‘Come and play for us, we will pay you well, we will try to attract the best talent.’”
Mr. Milanovic describes Smith as the ‘perfect blend of power and pace.’Francisco Macia Martinez/The Associated Press
Few soccer experts would rank Ms. Smith among the best players in the world, but it’s her potential that has attracted so much interest.
She’s been an explosive player ever since she was a youngster growing up outside Whitby, Ont., and watching videos of Brazilian star Marta and Canadian legend Christine Sinclair.
Like most rambunctious kids, Ms. Smith tried a variety of sports, including volleyball, basketball and taekwondo, but she developed a passion for soccer, encouraged by her father, Sean.
“Olivia was very driven. She always, always wanted more,” her father told Ontario Soccer in an interview in 2023. He was her first coach but recognized early on that Ms. Smith needed better training and tougher competition.
When she was 6, she begged her coaches at Whitby FC to add her to a team of eight-year-olds. “She was different and very aggressive winning the ball and slide tackling,” recalled Mirco Schroff, who was the club’s technical director at the time. “I had to talk to her to stay on her feet, and she said she was watching football all the time and she sees players putting good slide tackles in.”
She bounced around a variety of teams in the Toronto area as a teenager, forever seeking new challenges. In 2019, at the age of 15, she received a call up to the national team and played for Canada at a tournament in China, becoming the youngest player to make a senior debut.
Her development lagged during the COVID-19 pandemic and she had limited success in the U.S. college ranks. She initially committed to Florida State University but switched to Penn State, where she played for one year in 2022.
The turning point came in July, 2023, when she turned pro and signed with Sporting CP of the Portuguese league. She scored 16 goals in 28 appearances in the 2023-24 season and was named the league’s player of the year.
Her success caught the attention of Liverpool, and the WSL team paid a club record £200,000 to bring her to England in 2024. She scored nine goals in 25 games last year – making her one of only a handful of players her age to score that many across Europe’s five major leagues.
“Her shot was always outstanding, just an unbelievable amount of power,” Mr. Milanovic said. “She’s that perfect blend of power and pace.”
Canada forward Olivia Smith has become the most expensive player in women’s soccer history. Arsenal has signed her from Liverpool at a reported £1-million ($1.85-million). The 20-year-old from Whitby, Ont., has rapidly risen since developing in the U.S. college system.
The Canadian Press
Fitting into Arsenal will be a challenge. Ms. Smith will arrive carrying the £1-million price tag and facing high expectations. Arsenal won the Champions League last year but came a distant second in the WSL to Chelsea, and all eyes will be on Ms. Smith to deliver goals.
She’ll also have to find her place on a team that’s loaded with talented forwards such as England standouts Beth Mead and Alessia Russo; Sweden’s Stina Blackstenius and Caitlin Foord of Australia.
In a video posted on Arsenal’s website, Ms. Smith talked about dealing with pressure, including her spell on the national team.
“I find that I’m able to handle a lot of those pressures pretty well, so I didn’t really feel much of a negative effect from all that,” she said, adding: “I just really want to contribute to the team with wins. I want to go to the Champions League and win that. Win the cups.”