Source: Seattle signs Fishel to record NWSL deal

Seattle Reign FC has signed United States women's national team forward Mia Fishel through 2029 on a transfer from Chelsea.

Fishel's contract runs through the 2029 NWSL season and is worth nearly $2.5 million, a source with knowledge of the deal told ESPN, making what is believed to be the most valuable cumulative deal in NWSL history.

Chicago Stars forward Mallory Swanson held what was previously believed to be the largest cumulative deal in league history, a five-year deal signed in early 2024 that was worth around $2 million.

Fishel arrived at Chelsea in 2023 from Tigres, where she was the league's top scorer at one point in her short time in Mexico.

She has three caps for the USWNT and scored her lone senior international goal to date in her second match for the USWNT, in 2023.

Fishel's time with the USWNT has been limited due to a torn ACL sustained while training with the team ahead of the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup. She recently returned to the field for Chelsea and spent the past international break as one of the overage players with the USWNT under-23s for a pair of games against Germany's U-23s.

Fishel, 24, grew up in San Diego. Her arrival in the NWSL comes over three years after she decided against joining the league out of college. She was initially drafted fifth overall in the 2022 NWSL draft by the Orlando Pride after leaving UCLA a year early, but she declined to sign with Orlando, choosing instead to go to Tigres.

Orlando had just hired former UCLA head coach Amanda Cromwell to be the Pride's head coach, although Cromwell was suspended early in that 2022 NWSL season and eventually terminated for alleged retaliation and violations of the league's workplace discrimination policies.