Khadija Shaw is set to leave Manchester City after her contract expires at the end of the season. Negotiations for her to stay have reportedly broken down, with Chelsea and other clubs interested in signing her.
Khadija Shaw set to leave Manchester City: What would WSL champions losing their top scorer mean?
Khadija “Bunny” Shaw is set to leave Manchester City upon the expiration of her contract at the end of the season.
The striker had been close to staying at the newly-crowned Women’s Super League champions but negotiations have broken down, according to sources briefed on the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships. Barring a late U-turn, Shaw’s time at City is due to come to an end.
Chelsea are among the interested parties who have made a contract offer worth at least £1million per year, as The Athleticreported in April. Shaw, 29, has also received offers from outside the WSL, including Europe and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) but no decision has been made yet.
The Jamaica international joined City from Bordeaux in 2021 and has won the Women’s Super League golden boot on two occasions, in 2022-23 and 2023-24. She has scored 110 goals in 133 appearances in all competitions for the club, becoming the first City player in the professional era to hit a century of goals.
Shaw is the WSL’s top scorer this term with 19 goals in 21 appearances, helping City win their first league title in a decade after Arsenal dropped points against Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday.
City’s WSL triumph this season ended Chelsea’s run of six successive titles.
Khadija Shaw is leaving Manchester City because negotiations for her to extend her contract have broken down.
Losing their top scorer could significantly affect Manchester City's performance and strategy in the Women's Super League.
Chelsea is among the interested clubs, with offers also coming from teams in Europe and the National Women’s Soccer League.
Chelsea has made a contract offer worth at least £1 million per year for Khadija Shaw.
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To lose Shaw so soon after winning the WSL title for the first time in a decade would feel like a fumble on the part of Manchester City.
In all honesty, it’s difficult to argue differently. Shaw is the WSL’s best goalscorer, one of the key driving forces behind City’s title triumph this season and arguably one of the best strikers in the women’s game. She is only 29. She has at least four more years of elite goalscoring in her. She is only likely going to get better.
So to lose her on a free transfer? And to possibly the very rival you’ve dethroned?
From a PR angle, it feels catastrophic. City unable to retain the best, even when they have been crowned the best.
But this is more about City’s operational model. Under director of football Therese Sjogran and managing director Charlotte O’Neill, City Women have been run with the ambition of being the best-run women’s football club in the world. Sjogran is described as an operator who, above all, places the needs of players first. But she is doing so within the financial structure under which City have come to operate, which does not bend for the desires of one player over others.
Both Sjogran and O’Neill are described as individuals who are fearless and fiercely convicted in their decision making, so neither will likely waver from the outside noise.
Yet, whether this will be a decision the two come to regret remains to be seen. When Sjogran, three months after her appointment, opted to sack former manager Gareth Taylor just five days before City’s League Cup final against Chelsea before facing them again in the UWCL quarter-finals, the outside world responded with incredulity and derision. A year later, City have lifted the WSL title.
But losing Shaw seems to carry more risk. After winning the WSL title, few expected City to be in such a space of uncertainty.
For Chelsea to potentially land her is a coup for a club that has struggled to for a consistent goalscorer this season and a sign of ongoing Chelsea’s pull, regardless of the dip this season. Should they pull off the signing after the departure of Paul Green, it would be a further feather in Chelsea’s cap.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
NWSL, Women's Soccer
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