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As Georgia Stanway walked into Arsenal’s training ground last week, a club shirt bearing her name and the number four on the back was waiting for her.When she stepped into the boardroom with her family, she found a box of gifts, including a welcome letter from one of her best friends and now club and country team-mate, England captain Leah Williamson. When a video showed her what Arsenal means to the north London side’s players and fans, Stanway felt deep down that she was in the right place.
The 27-year-old midfielder is joining on a three-year deal with the option of an additional 12 months, following the expiry of her Bayern Munich contract.
From 2022 to 2026, she helped win four Bundesliga titles, including two trebles, as Bayern established themselves as the dominant force in the women’s game in Germany.
“It’s hard to say goodbye to a place you absolutely love,” Stanway says. But she wanted another level. Home was calling after four years away, and Arsenal’s long-standing interest ultimately helped them beat Women’s Super League rivals and London neighbours Chelsea to her signature.
Ahead of her move, The Athletic visited Stanway in Munich in May and spoke to her again before Arsenal’s official announcement.
It has been a whirlwind few weeks for their new signing.
A trip to Ibiza for England team-mate Ella Toone’s hen do, back to Munich, across to New York to appear on The Rest is Football podcast with her hero Alan Shearer, back to Germany, then over to London to receive her MBE from King Charles before her Arsenal signing day last week. She finally returned to Munich to hand back the keys to her apartment and car before making the move final.
“Today’s my last day,” she tells The Athletic over the phone, moments before catching a flight to the UK. “This is my last trip home.”
From Manchester to Munich and now returning to England with Arsenal, Stanway takes us behind the scenes of what happens when a footballer moves clubs — and countries.
From ‘down-low’ negotiations to a loud arrival
Freezing temperatures gripped Munich at the turn of 2022. Stanway, then a Manchester City player, was on a secret visit. With six months left on her contract, she was free to talk to other clubs. “You want to do everything on the down-low,” she says, looking out over Bayern’s training campus and recalling that first trip four years ago.
After the women’s team’s players had gone home, Stanway and a representative from the agency looking after her met women’s football director Bianca Rech. Entering the final months of her City contract, the 23-year-old underwent a medical before touring Bayern’s facilities, the city centre and potential accommodation. It was a day-long, whistle-stop visit, but she wanted to see as much of Munich as possible before making a decision.
“It was important to see what home could be,” she says. “I had no idea what I was walking into.”
But starting with a blank slate was refreshing.
Scouted in her teens by Nick Cushing, now head coach of NWSL side Denver Summit, Stanway spent seven years at Manchester City. In her last one, under Gareth Taylor, the combative midfielder played out of position at right-back. She had only ever seen herself playing in England until Bayern’s interest came out of the blue.
“She was a bit underrated. I saw something,” Rech, a former Germany international, says. “She could really bring us to the next level, was ambitious and knew what she wanted. That impressed me.”
Stanway became the first English player in the club’s history. “A European champion (with England) coming to Bayern Munich, I never had any doubt,” adds Rech.
Very few England Women’s internationals have ventured abroad to a top European club, taking themselves out of their comfort zone, and been so instrumental to their new side’s success. The transfer reignited Stanway’s career, but the transformation was shaped by far more than what unfolded on the pitch.
In March 2022, Stanway was sitting in the Dakota Hotel in Manchester when Rech pulled a contract from her pocket. No one else knew about the move.
As Stanway drove on her own to her home in Cheshire, she thought, ‘Wahey, I’ve just signed for Bayern!’
“It is weird,” she says. “How do you tell your family what has just happened?”
She keeps her parents separate from football decisions.“We left the trust in the good people around her,” says her father, Paul.
Stanway leans on her support network, including former Manchester United player Luke Chadwick and Doron Salomon from her agency. “He’s pretty much family,” she says. “I trust his instincts.”
Staying tight-lipped about the future is not easy, especially when speculation swirls. “You have to keep it a secret as long as possible,” says Stanway. “It is difficult to lie. You don’t want it to spread fast and start rumours within the team. You don’t want to be a topic of conversation. You want to go about business as quietly as possible.”
After City’s 3-2 FA Cup final defeat against Chelsea that May, Stanway piled all of her belongings into a friend’s garage before meeting up with the England squad.
A historic summer saw England crowned European champions and, two days after the final, against Germany, at Wembley, Stanway packed her suitcases with just clothes and shoes. The rest of her possessions were left with her parents, while all her memorabilia — shirts, footballs, trophies and three boxes of 90 England caps — were stored in her grandfather’s loft.
Stanway flew alone to Munich airport, where Bayern official Nicole Rolser picked her up, took her to the club to do some medical tests before finally dropping her off at her new apartment.
Only after lugging her cases into the small lift of the high-rise building, walking into her studio apartment and shutting the door, did it fully dawn on her. “Oh, s***! What have I got myself into? I’d gone from owning my beautiful house to a studio with five suitcases that I’d just bought at TK Maxx.”
Straightaway, Bayern travelled to Italy for a pre-season tour. Those first hellos with new team-mates can be awkward. “You don’t exactly know how to make conversation,” Stanway says.
They encouraged her to sing Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, synonymous with England’s success that summer, as her initiation song, despite her plans to serenade them with Aeroplanes by B.o.B.
Arriving at a German club having beaten Germany in the Euros final a couple of weeks prior may have been difficult for some, but not Stanway. “It was the perfect arrival,” she says. “I was high on life. It sounds daft, but I was already respected.”
Team-mates Glodis Viggosdottir and Sarah Zadrazil, who became her closest friends, describe Stanway as a “big player” with a certain aura about her, demanding of others and herself. That perception made Viggosdottir’s first impression of her all the more memorable: “Oh my God, you’re tiny!”
From Barrow to Bavaria
Clubs’ player-care managers help with the logistics of creating a home away from home, handling matters that range from opening a bank account to finding a parking spot.
On the pitch, Stanway, born in Barrow-in-Furness in the far north-west of England, settled in quickly in southern Germany but adapting to life outside football took some time.
So strong was her longing for Heinz baked beans, her pre-match meal of choice, that, ahead of her Bayern debut, Salomon turned up at the team hotel carrying two suitcases packed with tins of the British pantry staple.
“I was cracking up, thinking, ‘This can’t be true’,” laughs Rech, sitting in her office on campus.
Stanway lived in three different homes in her first year. During that time, she learnt that most Munich apartments do not come with a kitchen. Nor light fittings, bathroom fan or blinds. Bayern team-mates Klara Buhl and Sydney Lohmann turned interior designers and accompanied her to a kitchen shop to plan out a new setup. “That was a very tough five months for me,” Stanway says.
While Stanway was adjusting to German referees on the pitch, she was also contending with authority off it while sorting official paperwork. “I got a few speeding tickets in the first month, but they didn’t count because I didn’t have my German licence!” she smiles.
Stanway also did not realise that a percentage of her monthly salary was going to the church, after mother Joanne ticked a box stating she was Roman Catholic. When the club sought her mum’s permission to take her off the register, Joanne replied light-heartedly: “She’s going to Hell anyway!”
On the pitch, Stanway hit the ground running, even though the manager with whom she had envisaged working, Jens Scheuer, had left the club. Instead, she began pre-season under the stewardship of Alexander Straus.
“I didn’t know who this guy was,” she says. But given they were both new to the place, it worked in Stanway’s favour. Straus, a Norwegian, spoke English — Stanway might have learnt more German with Scheuer as the coach — and was not going to simply rely on tried-and-tested players. Furthermore, his preferred formation suited her.
Stanway had seen herself becoming more of an attacking midfielder and dismissed the opportunity to wear the No 6 shirt, but with Straus in charge, she became the team’s lynchpin. “He gave me a role I’d never had before in terms of expectation and responsibility,” she says. “I really enjoyed that.”
Usually, a new signing can take six to nine months to understand team dynamics. But after the second game at Bayern, “it just clicked,” says Stanway.
As Bayern’s current head coach Jose Barcola says, the England international would become “the conductor of the orchestra” in Bavaria. And that she did.
In May, dad Paul, having watched his daughter play her last home game for Bayern against Eintracht Frankfurt, recalled being quite emotional when she signed for them. “We were so used to watching her play every week in the WSL,” he says, sitting with The Athletic in the stands. “Georgia wanted to do what Georgia wanted to do.”
After a comfortable 2-0 win, captain Viggosdottir lifted the league trophy, a huge silver plate, before passing it to Stanway. She hoisted it above her head, gold ticker-tape raining down. As is tradition, players wore Lebkuchenherzen — gingerbread hearts — around their necks and poured huge steins of beer over one another. Stanway, much to her delight, soaked Rech.
“She’s a special character, a fun one and a very good person,” says Bayern’s director of women’s football.
From a leap of faith to returning home
Deciding to leave is never easy. Last summer, with a year left on her contract, Stanway started to think about her future during England’s successful European Championship title defence in Switzerland.
“Being in Germany, you don’t feel the effects of winning the Euros,” she said. “I don’t get to experience home fans often enough, I don’t get the feeling of being a European champion.
“Coming back to Bayern, it’s amazing, I get the representation, I get the congratulations, but I have nobody to share it with because I’m the only English person here. What I experience with the Lionesses is something I want to experience all the time.”
Straus, Stanway’s manager of three years at Bayern, had also left that summer for Los Angeles-based NWSL side Angel City. A new manager coming in always brings some uncertainty. “You could be loved by one and hated by another,” says Stanway.
Stanway wanted to inform Rech and the coach of her decision to leave as early as possible, so they could prepare for the future. Rech knew what was coming as Stanway’s tears started to fall. The two had built a strong and honest working relationship. She has seen the “kid” who constantly challenged her, forever driving standards, flourish into a key member of the team’s captains’ group.
Stanway also involved England coach Sarina Wiegman throughout the process because informing the club of her decision to leave in the first half of last season came with a risk of losing game time, which could have impacted Stanway’s international career.
“I was going to work hard every single day, train hard, play hard,” says the midfielder, though the number of playing minutes she received was out of her control. Despite sewing up the league so early, Bayern continued to play her up until the very last game.
It was while Bayern were away on their winter tour in Spain that the club informed Stanway they would be announcing her summer departure the next day — January 10.
Not wanting to make a big deal of it, she opted to send a message to the group chat the day before the news broke, rather than standing up in front of everyone. She pored over the wording, reading it out loud to room-mate Vigosdottir. “Just to let you know I’m leaving in the summer,” the message read. “There is still half a season to play for, more memories to make…”
“A bit more emotion, Georgia,” encouraged Vigosdottir after listening to the fifth draft.
“I just wanted to be as direct as possible,” says Stanway. “Deep down, I’m quite an emotional person, but I will always put up a front.”
When the story went public, Stanway’s phone was bombarded with messages from family friends. She could not escape seeing her team-mates face to face either.
‘F**k, as much as I am leaving, I’m still here,’ she thought. ‘I still need to be present for the people in front of me.’
From hunted to signed
A football transfer is shaped by many moving parts and a representative plays a key role, deciding if and when to share information with their client.
“I knew if staying was the right option then I wouldn’t be interested in hearing what other clubs had to say,” says Stanway.
Arsenal and Chelsea made offers while OL Lyonnes also showed interest (although the French club deny this). “I am a really loyal person,” Stanway says. “It was harder to speak to more clubs than just one.”
But Arsenal’s long-standing admiration and the fact they were first to express interest was “massive” for Stanway.
She wrote a pros and cons list. She wanted to come back to England. “It was really difficult between Arsenal and Chelsea, they were both very impressive,” she says.
“I don’t just want to be offered something because now people know I’m available,” she says. “I want to be hunted. I know they wanted me.”
There was an initial video call with director of women’s football Clare Wheatley and technical director Jodie Taylor, before a more football-specific chat with head coach Renee Slegers. Stanway liked Arsenal’s playing style and clearly saw where she could fit into their midfield.
“I feel there’s an opening in there for me,” she says. “I would love to play with Kim (Little) and Mariona (Caldentey). Kim is still unbelievable, but she’s not going to play forever.” In March, Little, now 36, signed a one-year contract extension.
Stanway had, in her words, “a few sly discussions” with a couple of Arsenal players to answer further queries while best friends Keira Walsh and Williamson played their part as recruiters for Chelsea and Arsenal, respectively. “It was hard, because I had Leah on one side and Keira on the other,” she says. “But it was important I made the decision for myself.”
Ultimately, discussions with Arsenal gave Stanway the same family feeling she had found at Bayern.
The letter from Williamson upon signing only confirmed her thoughts. “I know what the club means to her,” she says. “I’ve heard her talk about it for the last 10 years and now I’m a part of it. It feels a little surreal.”
From an emotional goodbye to excitement with Arsenal
Back at Bayern’s campus in May, Stanway’s looming departure had still not sunk in. “It’ll be the last party when we’re celebrating together,” she says. “That will probably be when it hits home.”
She will miss popping round to Vigosdottir’s for dinner when she does not want to cook, the tattoo studio where she learned her craft and made friends for life, the Hutong Club, her favourite restaurant, and good friend Carla Kompany, the wife of Bayern men’s team manager Vincent – and a huge Lionesses fan from Manchester. “She understands the jokes and slang,” says Stanway. “I’ve missed that.”
Stanway and Alexandra Milchgiesser, Bayern’s team supervisor who has become her “adopted mum”, have ferried bags full of her belongings she won’t be taking back to the UK to donate to charity.
“I can’t wait until she’s settled with a loft and I can just hire a van and deliver all her stuff,” smiles dad, Paul. Stanway’s agency sorts everything else out, from handling finances to finding her a place, so her transfer is as smooth as possible. “Everyone takes care of things without me having to think about it,” says Stanway, including her father.
Before he flew out to Munich for their last home game, Stanway texted him: “Dad, can you do me a massive favour? I need 44 bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate.”
It was Stanway’s goodbye gift to every player and staff member. “I thought about tins of baked beans, but I don’t think he was too happy to carry that over,” she says.
“Georgia, being Georgia, doesn’t think about the logistics of life,” quips Paul.
After one last farewell barbecue with her closest Bayern friends, Viggosdottir drove her to the airport on Tuesday.
As Stanway closes one chapter, another begins.
“I want to be in a more competitive league, where it’s high pressure, high demands constantly,” she says. “I knew it was my time to come home. I wanted to be where my family could come to most games and feel English football culture.”
From the outside, transfers may appear transactional, but Bayern has left a permanent mark on Stanway’s life. She has added the club’s motto “Mia san mia” — we are who we are — to her tattoo collection. Since returning to England, she has another: “Whatever the weather”, a lyric from The Angel (North London Forever), Arsenal’s unofficial anthem.
Now she hopes to etch her name into their history, too.
“I do believe,” she says, “this was the best move I could have made for my football and life.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Bayern Munich, Arsenal WFC, Manchester City WFC, Sports Business, Women's Soccer, Women's Super League
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