Denver Summit FC has agreed to a transfer with Mexico’s Pachuca for defender Ayo Oke for what would be the highest incoming transfer fee for an American player in NWSL history, sources told ESPN.

Denver, which begins play as a 2026 expansion team in a few months, will pay Liga MX club Pachuca a transfer fee close to $450,000 for Oke, a source confirmed. That figure would also make Oke among the most expensive known incoming transfer fees in NWSL history, although transfer fees are not always publicly confirmed by clubs.

There have been other more expensive intra-league transfers of Americans in recent months, including the $1.25 million more for USWNT playmaker Jaedyn Shaw from the North Carolina Courage to Gotham FC in September. Denver’s willingness to go get Oke, a U.S. youth international, from abroad is notable as the NWSL fights to change its salary rules to attract and retain top players, including Americans.

Oke has been with the USWNT’s U23 team in recent training camps. The 22-year-old Georgia native played in college for Cal and UCLA before signing her first professional contract in January of 2025 with Pachuca.

Pachuca won the 2025 Clausura playoff title in Oke’s first campaign at the club. Pachuca finished second in the 2025 Liga MX Apertura regular season, level on points with eventual playoff champions Tigres, who owned the tiebreaker.

Oke will join a Denver expansion roster that is still a work in progress. Among those currently signed and announced players are former NWSL champions Kaleigh Kurtz, Ally Watt and Carson Pickett.

Denver’s fee for Oke also represents the continued rapid development of the women’s soccer transfer market, which is growing for younger players alongside established veterans.

The record for an incoming NWSL transfer was set in August when the Orlando Pride paid $1.5 million to Tigres for Jacqui Ovalle, which set a world record at the time. That nearly doubled the world record that was set by Bay FC when the team acquired forward Racheal Kundananji in early 2024. Orlando paid a fee of $740,000 for forward Barbra Banda in early 2024.

In 2024, the Houston Dash acquired Brazilian defender Tarciane from Corinthians for a reported fee of around $485,000, according to Brazilian reports at the time. Tarciane was transferred to Lyons the next year for roughly double that fee.

TEMPE, Ariz. — Jonathan Gannon believes he’ll still be the Cardinals‘ coach in a week when head coach firings tend to begin around the NFL.

When asked during his Monday news conference if he thinks he’ll be in the same seat in a week for his postseason news conference, his answer was succinct: “Yeah.” Gannon said his reasoning was that he has confidence in himself.

Gannon was later asked if he has been told that his job is safe for the 2026 season and while saying he didn’t want to “get into all that,” he then followed up with: “I feel good.”

Gannon leads a Cardinals team into SoFi Stadium on Sunday for the season finale against the Los Angeles Rams with a 3-13 record, tied for the franchise’s worst single-season mark since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger. Should the Cardinals lose Sunday, Gannon will own the organization’s worst record in the past 55 years.

Gannon said “a lot” is discussed during his conversations with owner Michael Bidwill.

“I kind of do the same process as I’ve done the last two years: I try to take detailed notes, try to have a pulse of what’s going on, but you can’t let that … I do have to think about the future a little bit, obviously the seat that I’m in, but my focus is really on L.A. and that there’ll be a time to look at all of that and have those conversations and make changes,” Gannon said. “No one’s happy. I’m not happy. Players aren’t happy. Through adversity, you’ve got to change. So, I got to change, and we got to change some things, but we’ll get to that.”

Gannon said he doesn’t regret making bigger, more wholesale changes throughout the season because, “I thought that was the best thing to do for the team.”