15-year-old wonderkid
Benji Flowers set to sign for Chelsea – FC Dallas wonderkid will join once he turns 18
©FC Dallas
Chelsea have signed promising youth international Benji Flowers from Major League Soccer club FC Dallas. According to a report by The Athletic, the transfer will go through when the 15-year-old turns 18. The winger has been signed to a first-team contract at the MLS club until the end of the 2030/31 season with a club option for the 2031/32 season. Once the transfer to Chelsea is completed, Dallas will initially receive $3m (€2.6m), with add-ons that could bring the fee to $10m (€8.8m).
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B. Flowers
Left Winger
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Flowers is yet to appear in MLS, but the left-winger has already made his professional debut for Dallas’ MLS NEXT PRO affiliate North Texas SC. Flowers made his debut in that league as a 14-year-old, and since the establishment of MLS NEXT PRO as a third division and development league for MLS in the US and Canadian football pyramid in 2022,only 14 players have been younger.
While MLS NEXT PRO has quickly become a pipeline for emerging young players, FC Dallas, in particular, has been a strong exporter of talent for some time. Once complete, Flowers will join the likes of Chris Richards (sold to Bayern), Ricardo Pepi (to Augsburg), Bryan Reynolds (Roma) and Tanner Tessmann (to Venezia), as the latest player to emerge from the Dallas academy and make the jump to a European top club.
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Benji Flowers part of greater MLS transfer trend
Overall, MLS has increasingly become a league in which teenagers have thrived, benefiting from older stars that see out their careers in North America. A glance at the Transfermarkt database highlights a trend in which MLS clubs sell U19 players to European clubs for significant transfer fees (overview). It now appears only a matter of time until Flowers joins the illustrious list of talent developed in MLS over the last few years.
Note:When you search for something on Google, you’ll see a box with the latest news alongside the usual results. If you set Transfermarkt as your preferred source, our content will appear there more often.Add Transfermarkt as your preferred source here.
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