{"id":54374,"date":"2026-07-13T11:57:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/54374\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T11:57:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:57:05","slug":"champions-league-winner-mapi-leon-joins-london-city-lionesses-adding-to-exits-from-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/54374\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League winner Mapi Le\u00f3n joins London City Lionesses, adding to exits from Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON \u2014 The wave of players leaving Women\u2019s Champions League winner Barcelona continued Monday with Mapi Le\u00f3n joining London City Lionesses, where Alexia Putellas will again be a teammate.<\/p>\n<p>London City said the 31-year-old Le\u00f3n had signed a three-year contract as a free agent after her contract expired at Barcelona.<\/p>\n<p>Le\u00f3n won four Champions League titles in nine seasons at the heart of Barcelona\u2019s defense, all spent with Putellas as playmaker.<\/p>\n<p>Putellas joined London City last week as a statement signing for the fast-rising club owned by United States businesswoman Michele Kang. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat can I say about Michele?\u201d Le\u00f3n said in a club statement. \u201cShe is an inspirational woman who wants women\u2019s football to develop and thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A summer offseason of change at Barcelona also saw Spain right back Ona Batlle sign for Arsenal last week at the end of her contract with the European champion.<\/p>\n<p>Le\u00f3n, Putellas and Batlle all started in the Barcelona team that won 4-0 against OL Lyonnes \u2014 also owned by Kang \u2014 in the Champions League final in May.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI played in Spain for many years and I felt now was the right time to move given the project,&#8221; Le\u00f3n said. \u201cThe English league is helping women\u2019s football grow.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>London City placed sixth in the English Women&#8217;s Super League last season, the club&#8217;s debut in the top tier, won by Manchester City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 The wave of players leaving Women\u2019s Champions League winner Barcelona continued Monday with Mapi Le\u00f3n joining&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,1743,5534],"class_list":["post-54374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-soccer","tag-wires-bot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}