The Telegraph wrote an article about the dispute behind Liverpool's poaching of Ngumoha from Chelsea, and Chelsea demanded high compensation.
16-year-old Ngumoha helped Liverpool beat Newcastle 3-2 in this round of Premier League, completing his fantastic Premier League debut. He will turn 17 this Friday, when he will be eligible to sign his first one-year career contract. However, since Ngumoha left Chelsea to join Liverpool in July last year, the two clubs have not reached an agreement on transfer compensation.
Ngumoha's departure has also further escalated the fierce competition among top Premier League clubs in youth training recruitment, especially between Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool, where they began to compete more and more frequently for the opponent's young players in the youth training camp.
Under the Premier League rules, youth training players do not sign professional contracts, so there is no transfer fee, and there is no standard for compensation for being poached. Therefore, such disputes are often handed over to the "Compensation Committee" to determine the final compensation amount.
Engumoha's case is expected to be submitted to the committee soon. Chelsea insists that the compensation must be high enough to intimidate other clubs not to easily poach Chelsea's youth training core. However, Chelsea itself has poached youth training players from other clubs and has received similar compensation rulings.
Chelsea may prove his importance to the club based on Ngumoha's winning goal in his Premier League debut and demand higher compensation from Liverpool. But on the other hand, lawyers at buyers’ clubs usually argue that player development performance after transfer should not affect the assessment of compensation amounts.
Liverpool and Chelsea have always had tense relationships at all levels of signing. As early as 2017, the 17-year-old Solank had a controversy when he transferred from Chelsea to Liverpool; and until last season, Chelsea tried to sign Liverpool captain Van Dijk. During Abraham's tenure as Chelsea, the club signed Liverpool striker Torres for a record £50 million in 2011, and tried many times to introduce Liverpool's No. 1 star Gerrard.
However, those transactions around first-tier stars are a transfer culture in the traditional sense, and now Premier League teams poaching each other's youth training players is a new trend in recent years. In recent months, players of the same age as Ngumoha have also frequently moved, and they have completed transfers between clubs that have not previously poached each other.
Engumoha joined the Chelsea youth training system when she was very young, participated in the preparatory test at the age of 6 or 7, and then became the first member of the Chelsea U8 echelon. Since the 10th grade, Ngumoha has entered Chelsea's full-time education program and attends school near the Cobham training base. Although Chelsea offered him a two-year scholarship contract (covering two seasons at the age of 17 and 18), he and his family did not accept it.
After June 30, 2024, Ngumoha was given the right to leave the team freely and eventually joined Liverpool. Since he was under 16 years old at the time, he could not sign a professional contract, but the club could sign a scholarship agreement first and promise to convert to a professional contract immediately after his 17th birthday. England stipulates that the first professional contract for a 17-year-old player is up to one year.
Since then, Liverpool and Chelsea have never reached a compensation agreement on Ngumoha's transfer. At the same time, other youth training players of similar age groups also frequently flow in the transfer market. For example, Chelsea's Ryan Massedo joined Manchester City, and Chelsea responded, poached England's U15 international Isaac McGilvari from Manchester City.
In addition, Chelsea has paid high compensation for poaching other youth training players, such as paying about £3.25 million for Brighton youth training star Meuca and more than £1 million for 15-year-old Watson, who was introduced from Crystal Palace.
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