A UEFA Girls’s Champions League famous person and U.S. ladies’s nationwide workforce captain returns house. Denver Summit FC introduced the signing of Colorado native Lindsey Heaps on Monday. The midfielder will be part of Summit FC following the conclusion of her 2025-26 marketing campaign with OL Lyonnes.
The U.S. midfielder has 170 appearances with the USWNT, is a 2019 FIFA Girls’s World Cup, 2024 Olympic gold, and 2020 Olympic bronze medalist. She has aided the nationwide workforce in successful a number of Concacaf trophies, gained the U.S. Soccer Feminine Participant of the Yr in 2021, and was named to he Finest FIFA Girls’s XI in 2024.
“I am extremely excited to return house to Colorado and be part of Denver Summit FC,” Heaps stated. “This membership represents one thing particular, not only for the league, however for this neighborhood and for the subsequent technology of gamers rising up right here. I am totally dedicated to ending the season robust with Lyon, and I am unable to wait to start this subsequent chapter in Denver this summer season.”
A double homecoming
Heaps, born in Golden, Colorado, could have a double homecoming of types when she returns in the summertime — first to her house state as a product of Colorado’s youth system, and likewise again to the NWSL.
“Signing Lindsey Heaps is a defining second for Denver Summit FC,” stated Denver Summit FC Common Supervisor Curt Johnson. “She represents the very highest stage of excellence as a participant, a frontrunner, and an expert. To welcome her again house to Colorado and to have her assist form the id of this membership is extremely significant.”
The 31-year-old midfielder made headlines as a young person when she turned down her College of North Carolina scholarship to show professional and begin her membership profession with Paris Saint-Germain in 2012. Following a four-year stint in France, she signed with Portland Thorns FC in 2016 and gained a number of accolades in almost each season with the membership, together with the NWSL Protect (2016, 2021), NWSL Championship (2017), NWSL Problem Cup (2021), and NWSL MVP (2018) earlier than her departure in 2022 to OL Lyonnes.
“Lindsey will deliver a world-class stage to our workforce and represents the ambition of this membership on-and-off the sector,” stated Summit FC Head Coach Nick Cushing. “Lindsey has gained at each stage of the sport. Her management, expertise, and professionalism will proceed to lift the usual for Summit FC when she arrives this summer season. We’re thrilled to welcome a hometown participant again to Denver as we work to win championships and develop our membership and neighborhood.”
Is Lindsey Heaps the primary high-impact participant signing?
Final month, the league board of governors voted to implement a brand new mechanism to signal and pay gamers with out affecting the wage cap, referred to as the Excessive-Influence Participant rule. It is a new technique derived from the continued contract saga between U.S. ladies’s nationwide workforce winger Trinity Rodman and the NWSL.
The brand new guidelines enable groups to spend an extra $1 million on gamers who meet particular “star” standards. The flexibility to supply aggressive salaries in a world switch market rises stays a hurdle for the ladies’s leagues world wide, although the NWSL particularly has seen a rise in gamers leaving for groups abroad.
NWSL golf equipment will have the ability to exceed the league’s present wage cap by $1 million and use the HIP funds towards single or a number of participant contracts. The HIP threshold will even improve yearly alongside the wage cap, which is at present $3.5 million and set to rise to $5.1 million by 2030.
The HIP rule might be efficient as of July 1, however groups and golf equipment can instantly use the mechanism to signal high-profile athletes so long as contract buildings are reflective of the brand new coverage begin date. No membership has utilized the rule right now, together with Denver, although that would change in response to Summit FC normal supervisor Curt Johnson.
“Because it pertains to our need to signal Lindsay, this was one thing that actually predated the HIP rule,” Johnson informed media.”So, our intention was to signal Lindsay, then the hip rule got here alongside. We’ll actually work with the league to use it in one of the best ways we will that can positively impression our wage cap and our roster constructing.”
Denver’s roster continues to be rising and is much from the 40-player preseason roster deadline due on Wednesday. With Heaps set to hitch the workforce throughout the summer season, the membership will proceed to make the most of alternatives to accumulate gamers forward of their inaugural season.
“When a participant is assigned the HIP class, the wage cap cost is within the wage cap, after which there is a pool of cash exterior the wage cap, is the way it works,” Johnson stated. “However we’re shifting ahead with the belief that it will fall within the HIP class, and hopefully we’re shifting on to discovering our subsequent participant that matches that class,” he stated.
When will Lindsey Heaps debut for Denver?
The midfielder is to hitch Summit FC following completion of her season with OL Lyonnes, and the NWSL’s latest enlargement franchise expects the midfielder’s arrival in June. She’s at present competing with the French aspect domestically and within the 2025-26 UEFA Girls’s Champions League.
Heaps has already been a part of a number of trophies with the European giants throughout her time with the membership. She’s gained three Division 1 Féminine titles, a UWCL title, and the Coupe de France Féminine. Her signing is taken into account a high-profile addition to Denver’s enlargement roster constructing.
Whereas the membership expects her arrival in June, when she makes her first look as a member of Summit FC is one other factor fully. The league has already introduced that it’s going to take a summer season break throughout the males’s 2026 FIFA World Cup from June 1 via 28. The month-long pause means regular-season video games will doubtless resume the primary weekend of July.
When will Denver Summit play its first house recreation?
The whole NWSL schedule is about for launch at a later date, however the league unveiled a blueprint with key dates.
Formally NWSL’s sixteenth franchise, the Denver Summit will play its first recreation on Saturday, March 28. Billed as “The Kickoff,” the membership will take the pitch at NFL stadium, Empower Subject at Mile Excessive, in Denver. The marquee occasion is scheduled to be televised on CBS, with the opponent to be introduced throughout the official regular-season schedule announcement.
What’s subsequent
The membership continues to construct its roster forward of the 2026 NWSL common season. Whereas Lindsey Heaps’ arrival will not impression the workforce until the second half of the 12 months, there are nonetheless loads of league-experienced gamers already on a part of Denver’s inaugural roster. The membership signed free brokers Ally Watt and Kaleigh Kurtz, and just lately acquired Canadian worldwide Janine Sonis.
