In a surprising move, Washington Spirit have traded star midfielder Croix Bethune to 2025 shield-winners Kansas City Current for $100 thousand in allocation funds and $900 thousand in transfer threshold funds, the team announced Wednesday. Bethune, who had one year and an option year remaining on her contract with the Spirit, signed a new deal through 2027 with the Current.

Bethune was the third pick of the 2024 NWSL draft — a slot Washington traded Sam Staab to receive — and quickly impressed with her keen sense of space, canny passing in the final third, and killer instinct before the goal. She tied the assist record that year with 10 in just 17 matches, before a knee injury ended her season early. Despite that, she was voted both Rookie and Midfielder of the Year. In 2025, Bethune returned to the pitch and to a starting spot on the Spirit’s roster. She scored three goals, including one in the semifinal match against Portland Thorns, and made two assists.

The news was met with shock and dismay by Spirit fans, who grew to love Bethune’s skills and joyful personality on the field, and her fashion and open love for the community off-field.

Certainly, there is plenty of reason to question the wisdom of this trade. While the Spirit have another starting-quality attacking mid in Leicy Santos, the two have different profiles and, indeed, were often deployed most effectively together, as seen during Washington’s 2025 playoff run. More concerningly, there are no natural back-ups in that position on the injury-prone roster and no clear potential signings in the league who can replace Bethune’s unique skillset.

The Spirit haven’t just weakened themselves; they’ve also strengthened a rival. In 2025, Kansas City was one of the most dominant teams in NWSL history, winning the shield with 21 points over the second-ranked Spirit. Led by two-time consecutive Golden Boot winner, Temwa Chawinga, they scored 49 goals. The combination of Bethune’s through-balls and Chawinga’s speed could be absolutely lethal, propelling them to continued success (although the simultaneous trade of defensive midfielder Claire Hutton to Bay FC creates a gap for them as well).

On the positive side of this decision is the power of player choice. CBS Sports reported that Bethune requested the trade, and Spirit President of Soccer Operations Haley Carter confirmed in the team’s press release that Bethune had expressed “her desire to explore development opportunities in a different environment….” While the reasons for this are unknown, it’s a good thing that a player’s desire for new opportunities (and potentially a better contract) are respected.

The trade also brings in money for a club desperately needs it. The Spirit have spent big this offseason on Trinity Rodman’s new contract and Claudia Martínez’s transfer, and the money from this deal can help alleviate that. According to the NWSL Competition Manual, allocation funds can be used, among other things, to reduce salary cap impact of a contract or to pay for a transfer or loan fee. The term “transfer threshold funds” does not appear in the Competition Manual but seems to refer to transfer fees that offset amounts the Spirit have paid out — keeping them under the net threshold amount to avoid a penalty — but can otherwise be spent as the team chooses.

This would align with Carter’s vision of success for the club, described on a recent episode of Hey Spirits as including both winning championships and generating revenue.

“I think, you know, there’s many ways that you can define success as a leader of a professional sports organization,” Carter said. “And you know, for me, being able to develop a player and sell that player, right? We’re talking about the professionalization of women’s sports. And I know that, like, fans struggle with players moving about, but one: players like to move about; two: that’s how you generate revenue.”

It’s clear that more change will be coming for the Spirit, both to bring in money as the team navigates the salary cap and the pursuit of profitability and to try to fill the hole Bethune leaves behind. Whether they’ll be able to do the latter in a way that helps them finally win a second NWSL Championship remains to be seen.