“The market is more competitive now around the age of 16 than it’s ever been. There’s no question that since Brexit, the landscape has changed and it’s driven up the price of young English talent.”
Liverpool academy director Alex Inglethorpe is sat in his office at the club’s Kirkby training complex discussing the new battleground in elite youth recruitment.
Since 2021, following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, Premier League clubs have no longer been able to strengthen their academy ranks by signing under-18 players from overseas. It has placed a greater emphasis on recruiting, keeping and developing the best youngsters in the UK.
Traditionally, those who progressed through the age groups in a top academy tended to stay put if they were offered a two-year scholarship at 16. However, increasingly, teenagers are moving at that age.
First-year scholars earn a set wage of around £1,500 per month across the board but clubs can try to lure them away before they pen scholarship forms with the offer of a lucrative pre-contract agreement for their first professional deal when they turn 17. As well as money, a clearer pathway to first-team football is used as an incentive.
If compensation cannot be agreed between clubs regarding training and development costs, then the fee payable is determined by a tribunal. For example, in February, Liverpool were told they must pay Chelsea £2.8million, potentially rising to £6.8m with performance-related add-ons, for winger Rio Ngumoha, who moved to Merseyside in September 2024 shortly after he turned 16.
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Given the impact that Ngumoha has made at Anfield, that already looks like small change but more generally, there’s a dilemma when it comes to making judgements about how far you should go financially to both attract and retain top academy talent.
“You have to be careful you’re not paying a premium for players who perhaps might not impact the first team. That’s ultimately the danger,” Inglethorpe says. “The money involved is more significant now. As an academy, you just try to get them to 16 and then it’s more of a club decision around retaining them.
“With senior players, there’s no guarantee that someone you sign will come in and hit the ground running, but you have certain assurances based on what they’ve done in their career elsewhere. With younger players, you don’t know whether they’ll be able to adapt to senior football. There is no history: just a feeling that perhaps they could flourish given the right conditions.”
The Athletic revealed earlier this month that highly-rated winger Josh Abe had turned down interest from a host of Premier League clubs to commit his future to Liverpool. He has signed scholarship forms, with a pre-contract agreement in place for a three-year professional deal to start when he turns 17 in July 2027.
Josh Abe is ready to commit to Liverpool (Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Sources familiar with the process, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, say the England youth international was offered up to £50,000 per week to move elsewhere, but Abe and his family decided that his development would be best served staying at Kirkby following discussions involving Fenway Sports Group (FSG) technical director Julian Ward.
Liverpool’s youth recruitment drive this summer is expected to include the arrival of striker Michael Mulholland from Northern Irish side Crusaders, Celtic defender Dara Jikiemi and goalkeeper Zach Trinder from Wolverhampton Wanderers with other deals in the pipeline.
However, there’s also expectation that they will lose players. It was telling that Isaac Konde and Vincent Joseph, who have both been linked with moves to Premier League rivals, were absent from the list of new scholars the club recently announced.
Liverpool had previously sought to limit most of their first-year professionals to a basic salary of around £52,000 per year, supplemented by attractive bonuses linked to their progress.
However, now there are different tiers and an acceptance that times have changed post-Brexit. Prior to 2021, clubs had greater choice over where they invested when it came to under-18s. For example, Liverpool looked to the Dutch academy system to sign the likes of Bobby Adekanye and Ki-Jana Hoever. Now it’s a UK-only market, the talent pool is smaller and more expensive.
Chris Dowling, the club’s head of academy recruitment, works closely with Liverpool’s director of global talent Matt Newberry, who is responsible for deciding which youngsters from overseas should be targeted for a move when they turn 18.
In January, Liverpool paid Senegalese club Amitie FC £1million for defender Mor Talla Ndiaye, who was an unused substitute on three occasions in the second half of the season. “Mor has got an amazing personality, which has enabled him to settle really quickly. He’s still learning the language but he’s already shown everyone what he can do,” Inglethorpe says.
Liverpool also agreed a £2.5million deal with Austria Vienna for fellow centre-back Ifeanyi Ndukwe, who will officially join in pre-season, and beat off competition from a number of top European clubs to line up the signing of Colombian attacking midfielder Samuel Martinez. He will cost around £750,000 when he turns 18 next April.
Ngumoha was undoubtedly Liverpool’s standout youngster in 2025-26. After coming off the bench to score a dramatic late winner on his Premier League debut against Newcastle United in August, he kicked on impressively.
The 17-year-old winger ended up making 29 senior appearances (nine starts) in all competitions with his club form earning him a place in England’s pre-World Cup training camp and a first cap in the warm-up game against New Zealand. He’s also been shortlisted for the PFA Young Player of the Year award.
“Rio hasn’t surprised me because I thought he was ready,” Inglethorpe says. “He had a lot of momentum from pre-season, having done well on the tour of Asia, and he built on that.
“Every time he played, you could see he looked that bit more comfortable and his decision-making got better. Rio has a real belief in himself and his ability to impact games. You can see how much he loves to go one-v-one and make something happen around the box. You can feel it in the crowd as well when he gets the ball. There’s a genuine excitement. He lives for football and that’s a great basis.”
Rio Ngumoha was a standout young player for Liverpool last season (Jack Thomas/Getty Images)
There are also high hopes for Trey Nyoni as a new era dawns at Anfield following the sacking of Arne Slot and the appointment of Andoni Iraola as head coach. The 18-year-old midfielder, who cost Liverpool around £1million from Leicester City in 2023, enjoyed 14 first-team outings (two starts) in 2025-26.
“Watching Trey train, he looks ever so comfortable in that first-team environment,” Inglethorpe adds. “There has to be juncture where you go from training every day with them to turning that into minutes on the pitch, and that’s where he’s at now. He’s shown patience and he’s ready to take the next step next season. I’ve got every confidence that Trey will go on to play a lot of games for this club.”
Injuries had an impact on the senior game-time afforded to academy graduates last season. Striker Jayden Danns, who was hampered by hamstring issues, was limited to just one appearance against Southampton in the Carabao Cup, while right-back Conor Bradley’s season was cruelly ended by a serious knee injury in January.
“I think the team missed Conor because he gives you so much when he’s out there,” Inglethorpe says. “With Trent (Alexander-Arnold) leaving, most people felt that was a natural fit with Conor stepping up and it was difficult to see him not have the season he wanted. I know he’ll come back strong next season.
“As for Jayden, his body has gone through a tremendous amount of growth over the past year or so. Previously, it was a stress-related problem (in his back) and this season, it was hamstring. He’s put on a few kilos of muscle. He’s grown and looks like a man now.”
Midfielder Stefan Bajcetic, who was recruited as a 16-year-old from Celta Vigo five years ago before the Brexit changes kicked in, missed the entire campaign, but is targeting a comeback in pre-season.
With Curtis Jones’ future uncertain amid interest from Serie A outfit Inter as he enters the final year of his contract, Danns could find himself as the only Scouser in the senior squad next season if he can stay fit and force his way into Iraola’s plans.
Inglethorpe insists there are other homegrown talents coming through capable of ensuring that a local presence in the first team is maintained. He won’t name names, but there’s a buzz in academy circles over 15-year-old midfielder Luca Eden, who made his under-18s debut at the age of 14 last season.
Eden is from Wirral, across the River Mersey from Liverpool, while Abe is from Warrington, 18 miles away. Both have been at the academy since they were four. Abe has been given a first-team squad number (40) since committing his future to the club and will be part of next month’s pre-season tour of the U.S.
“When I look through the age groups, I know there are local boys here who will play for this club,” Inglethorpe says. “You can debate how you define ‘local’. Do they need to have a purple bin? (a symbol of living within Liverpool City Council boundaries). I’m excited about the talent we’ve got. There’s a lot of potential.”
Liverpool under-13s beat Arsenal in the final of the Premier League National Cup this season. The same group won the inaugural Virgil van Dijk Legacy Trophy in Holland earlier in the season and the recent Ian Frodsham Memorial Cup, where striker Ade Adediran top scored with 13 goals. Liverpool under-15s won the regional Premier League Cup and reached the national final, where they lost to Chelsea.
Success in the higher age groups proved elusive. Rob Page’s under-21s side finished seventh in the Premier League 2 table and were knocked out of the play-offs by Crystal Palace, while Simon Wiles’ under-18s were eighth in their league. Liverpool lost to Charlton Athletic in the third round of the FA Youth Cup and Slovakian side Zilina beat them in the last 32 of the UEFA Youth League. However, the bigger picture is always development.
Alex Inglethorpe is less concerned about results than providing players for Liverpool’s first team (Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
“Context is key,” Inglethorpe says. “As a club, we don’t stockpile a lot of young talents so if players move up to the first team or the under-21s, or they go out on loan or get injured, that’s going to make it more challenging.
“It was important to see the likes of Luke Chambers, Lewis Koumas and Luca Stephenson go out on loan and really make their mark.
“This season, we had an under-15 playing regularly in the under-18s, as well as two or three under-16s. The team looked very different one week to the next and that’s why sometimes, results were so polar. I’m delighted with the impact both Rob and Simon have made in their first year here on the staff. Of course you want to win but, ultimately, the job of the academy is to produce players for the first team and that’s our focus.”
Inglethorpe has also been grateful for the support of Van Dijk, who was a regular at academy fixtures all season. His son Jacey has been training with the pre-academy group. “Virgil has been outstanding,” he says. “It’s mark of the captain he is. It’s not just the 18s and 21s; he walks over to watch the younger age groups on a Sunday, too.”
The mission to develop players is being backed by FSG investing £20million in the redevelopment of the academy, the biggest overhaul since it opened in 1998. A dome will be built, giving the club a full-size indoor pitch for the first time. Liverpool are awaiting planning permission before a start date can be confirmed.
Since 2020, Liverpool have generated more than £200million from the sale of players who represented the club at youth level. Last summer, they earned around £100m, including performance-related add-ons, following the departures of Alexander-Arnold (Real Madrid), Caoimhin Kelleher (Brentford), Nathaniel Phillips (West Bromwich Albion), Jarell Quansah (Bayer Leverkusen), Tyler Morton (Lyon) and Ben Gannon-Doak (Bournemouth).
Internally, it was viewed as the end of a cycle. Now the challenge is to launch a new one.
“We did sell a lot of academy players last year who were at a stage where they had a certain level of experience in their 20s but wanted to play more minutes,” Inglethorpe says. “The players coming through now are younger and need a bit more exposure. It wasn’t an easy season to get that but I know the pathway is there.
“Whether it was Trent, Curtis or Caoimhin previously, we understood they had to earn the right to be around the first team, then find a way into the team, then find a way to stay there and help the team win things. That doesn’t happen overnight.
“I’ve seen the squad evolve in my 14 years here. Looking at the strength and depth, it’s arguably a harder challenge now than it’s ever been, but there’s always a way.”
With plenty of star names set to be absent in the early stages of pre-season due to the World Cup, Iraola will take a youthful group on the tour of America, which involves games in Nashville, New York and Chicago. It will provide the perfect stage to catch the Spaniard’s eye.
“All the boys realise the importance of a pre-season after a tournament summer,” Inglethorpe adds. “There’s the opportunity to put your name forward that you could be someone of interest. It’s an amazing opportunity to have an audition with the manager. Rio showed what was possible when he grasped his chance last year.”
