Alexia Putellas, or La Reina, the Queen who was Barcelona Femení’s heartbeat for 14 years, has officially signed with London City Lionesses. She will be a WSL player starting this September.
London City Lionesses, who were a second-tier, semi-professional club two years ago, now have a two-time Ballon d’Or winner on their roster.
Putellas leaves Barcelona after having achieved what might only be a dream for many. During her time with them, Putellas has won 10 league titles and four Champions Leagues. She has made 507 appearances for Barça and scored 232 goals.
Speaking about her time with Spain, Alexia has 147 caps for the national team and won the maiden FIFA World Cup in 2023.
Even at 32, she remains one of the best midfielders in the game. During Spain’s World Cup qualifying match against England, Putellas scored two goals in a 4-0 victory that helped Spain secure direct qualification for the 2027 women’s World Cup in Brazil.
For a league like WSL, signing Putellas is a landmark moment. The league has spent years trying to prove it can attract the biggest names, while Alexia’s choice proves it. She will also be the first Ballon d’Or winner to play for an English club.
The league has had transformative signings before. Chelsea paid a world-record £1.1 million ($1.38m) fee to sign Naomi Girma from San Diego Wave in January 2025, making her the first female footballer to break the £1 million barrier. Arsenal’s capture of Alessia Russo from Manchester United in 2023 brought England’s most marketable player to north London, and Pernille Harder’s £250,000 move from Wolfsburg to Chelsea in 2020 was considered a watershed moment for the women’s transfer market.
Circling back to London City, for a club in only its second WSL season, you’d expect them to build patiently and invest in players who can develop with the club. However, owner Michele Kang appears determined to accelerate the process.
Michele Kang, the American billionaire, purchased the club in 2023 and has rapidly turned it from an ambitious Championship side into one of the most talked-about projects in the women’s game. Midfielder Grace Geyoro from Paris Saint-Germain received a seven-figure signing fee, signalling that London City are not interested in a slow climb towards the top of the league.
Putellas is no stranger to competing in Champions League finals. She has played in front of more than 91,000 people at Camp Nou for Barcelona’s Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid in 2022, a world-record attendance for a women’s club match at the time. But now, she will find herself making the move to Bromley, a suburb in south-east London, where their Hayes Lane home holds just over 6,000 supporters — fewer than 2,000 of them seated, most of whom will surely be sold out each week given the players arriving.
The difference between the numbers paints a picture of Kang’s ambition and what she wishes to create. In the past decade, if a superstar ever became available, it was assumed they would move to the NWSL. But with Putellas choosing to come to a small suburb in south-east London, it speaks to the levels the WSL has reached. Boston Legacy was one of the last offers standing before Alexia chose London City Lionesses and the WSL.
Speaking about Kang again, she is not someone who’s a stranger to disrupting expectations. Under her ever-growing portfolio, London City Lionesses is not the only team she owns; besides it, she owns Washington Spirit, which has become one of the NWSL’s flagship clubs, while her acquisition of OL Lyonnes places one of the most successful clubs in women’s football history in her orbit.
The only issue is that Putellas is 32. At best, she is a short-term signing bought to win now. If the goal is to become a sustainable threat to Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester City over the next few years, Kang and co should look no further than where Putellas made her name.
Barcelona didn’t Barcelona because they signed Alexia from Levante in 2012. They became a dominant force because they built an environment capable of developing and sustaining players like Aitana Bonmati.
This is not a WSL giant like Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester City attracting a superstar; it is a club that was in the Championship little more than a year ago. So convincing the captain of Barcelona’s golden generation to buy into its future definitely doesn’t mean Putellas joined to end up in the middle of the table — everyone will expect success.
