Birmingham’s major move shows where fiscal power lies in women’s football | OneFootball

“If anyone didn’t take our ambition seriously, I hope they really do after this window, because it shows what we’re pushing for.”

Amy Merricks was answering a question about Birmingham City breaking the second-tier transfer record to sign Wilma Leidhammar from Norrköping, but the head coach’s words could easily sum up the English January transfer window as a whole, as teams in the Women’s Super League, and in WSL2, demonstrate where the financial power lies in the women’s game.

Birmingham are understood to have paid about €315,000 (£273,000) to sign the attacking midfielder. As recently as the summer of 2022, this would have been a world-record fee. In the three-and-a-half years since, valuations for women’s players have risen sharply but, even in January 2026’s market, this is still a hugely significant level of investment in a young player. It is a statement signing for four reasons.

First, it exemplifies Birmingham’s ambitions in a week when their men’s side paid a reported £6m fee to sign the Danish striker August Priske. Their American owners crave promotion for both teams. Second, it demonstrates the need for WSL2 clubs to invest in this transfer window, with an extra promotion spot on the line for one season only. Third, it comes in a week when a report showed the revenues at Europe’s leading women’s clubs rose by an average of 35% last year. And last, but most not least, it suggests Leidhammar is a top prospect.

A source close to Norrköping told the Guardian Leidhammar had “everything needed” to reach the top and that she could be the successor to Kosovare Asllani, the 36-year-old Sweden great. Leidhammar scored 27 goals and provided 11 assists in Sweden’s top division across the past four seasons, including nine goals in 2025. “I love to have the ball at my feet,” she says. “That’s my favourite part, to find those pockets of space, to assist and to score.”

As far as the finances go, this is an investment Birmingham feel will pay off in the long term, but it does not come without risk. As the football journalist Michael Cox pointed out in reaction to the signing in a post on X, it is a huge outlay relative to the matchday income of a WSL2 club, not least because the division offers only 11 home matches a season. But it is soaring commercial revenues, rather than matchday revenues, for top clubs that will give Birmingham’s owners confidence that their expenditure can pay off.

Leidhammar’s arrival points to a notable trend in this transfer window: she is one of 14 players to have moved from a Scandinavian team to an English club. The region’s reputation for developing young talent has led to a raid this month.

Tottenham have signed four players from Scandinavia: Norway’s Signe Gaupset, from Brann, her international teammate Julie Blakstad, from the Swedish side Hammarby, and the Swedish duo Hanna Wijk and Matilda Nildén from Häcken, who also lost Alice Bergström to Liverpool on a permanent transfer and the Sweden goalkeeper Jennifer Falk on loan to the Merseyside club. Another of Sweden’s emerging stars, right-back Smilla Holmberg, moved to Arsenal.

It means that eight of the players in the Sweden starting XI that faced the Lionesses in the Euro 2025 quarter-final play in England, and the other three have done so in the past.

Leidhammar, speaking to the Guardian after her transfer, said she was glad her former club had been well-reimbursed: “That’s a really big thing. They’ve developed me for so long, so to be able to give this to them as well, it feels good.” Of joining Birmingham, she said: “I’m very happy to be here. From my first call with the club, with Amy, it felt really good. The ambitions of the club have felt really good.

“She explained my position very well. She showed me a couple of clips from my previous club and how she sees me fitting into the team. It feels like a very good step for me as a player, to develop here in the English league.”

Leidhammar, who began playing as a goalkeeper aged four before switching to be a striker and eventually settling on an attacking midfield role as she thrived in Sweden’s youth sides, was an unused substitute as Merricks’ side charged to a 6-2 victory at Hull City in the Women’s FA Cup fourth round on Sunday, but could make her debut at Portsmouth in the league on Saturday.

Birmingham are second in WSL2, with two automatic promotion spots up for grabs, five points behind the leaders, Charlton, and level with Bristol City, who have played a game more. Merricks said: “We haven’t been quiet about it – we want to win the league. And that comes with a relentless desire, every day, to make sure that our actions in training, and out of training around the building, match that. It’s one thing saying it but you have to make sure your actions match your words.

“We want to be a club that wins, and a club that not only wins once but wins again and wins again. We want to breed a winning mentality.”

Header image: [Photograph: Peter Sonander/SPP/Alamy]