From Taekwondo to Record Transfer: Olivia Smith's Rise

Olivia Smith has lived under a spotlight since she was 15, but her preparation for the pressures of professional football began long before. Now 22, Smith made history last year as the first £1m women's footballer when Arsenal signed her from Liverpool in a world-record deal. Just one season earlier, she had joined Liverpool for a club-record £210,000, having already made a name for herself with her Canada debut at age 15. In October 2025, she became the first woman to score for Liverpool at Anfield in a Women's Super League match. Now, for the second consecutive year, she is the first non-English recipient of the PFA Women's Young Player of the Year award.

Early Life and Multicultural Upbringing

Smith grew up in Whitby, a small city in Canada, where her father, Sean, encouraged her to play football from a young age. She switched local clubs annually and played with boys until she was 12, before joining a girls' team. Despite her talent, she continued training with boys while enjoying a multicultural upbringing near Toronto.

"My parents have made a lot of sacrifices taking me to all these places and moving every couple of years," Smith told BBC Sport. "My dad's Jamaican, my mom's Chilean and Peruvian. There's so much football culture within those. I grasped a lot of that from my dad's dad who played football and my mom's dad also played in South America. I think I have that flair in my DNA."

She also embraced the cultural diversity of Toronto: "Of course, I [enjoy the different] food, music, all those kinds of things. In Toronto, you find it is a very multicultural place and that was really cool growing up."

Overcoming Bullying Through Sport

Smith later faced bullying at school and turned to other sports as coping mechanisms, not realizing at the time how they would benefit her football career. "I did taekwondo as a kid. I was getting bullied in school so it was more of a defensive mechanism kind of thing," she said. "I did gymnastics too. That really helps with my agility. I find that, for my stature, I'm quite flexible as well, which really helps injury prevention."

She credits taekwondo with improving her discipline and shooting speed: "Taekwondo really helped with my discipline and arguably my shooting ability in terms of its speed. I think mainly it was just to keep me active, out of trouble, and it was just for fun. Thankfully it contributed to my footballing career."

The unusual sporting background also helped her handle attention, pressure, and bullying. "It helps with just the discipline on and off the pitch in simple tasks that are really important in my day-to-day life," Smith added. "In gymnastics, you have to do splits or planks for [a length of time]. It's really hard mentally so that helped me mature. I developed a lot of mental toughness."

Family Support and Personal Interests

Smith's father was deeply involved in her development, tracking her statistics and filming her games. "That is his favourite thing in the world to do. When I was younger, he would literally film all my games," Smith said. "After games, we would go back and watch everything, see what I could have done better and what I did well. He kept a diary of the goals that I scored, what minute it was in and things like that. He still has it to this day. He loves it!"

Off the pitch, Smith enjoys cooking and watching TV series, with Law and Order: SVU a current favorite. She says she is "dying to get a puppy."

Smith learned independence early, leaving home as a teenager to pursue her career. When she moved to Michigan at 15 on her own, she didn't know where she would be living when she boarded the plane. "Moving around a lot, you're sacrificing relationships because you make good friends in one place, then you have to move," she said.