{"id":20948,"date":"2026-07-24T14:11:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=20948"},"modified":"2026-07-24T14:11:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:11:33","slug":"dallas-sign-flowers-15-in-pre-arranged-deal-with-chelsea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=20948","title":{"rendered":"Dallas sign Flowers, 15, in pre-arranged deal with Chelsea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>Sources briefed on the deal told <\/span><span><em>The Athletic<\/em><\/span><span>  that Dallas will bank an initial fee of around $3million (\u00a32.25m), with performance-related add-ons capable of pushing the total value beyond $10million. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>Some of those add-ons can be triggered before Flowers even leaves Texas, tied to how much first-team football he plays for Dallas and to milestones he reaches with United States youth national teams, while Dallas will also retain a sell-on percentage on any future transfer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>Flowers travelled to London recently to finalise his side of the arrangement with Chelsea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>FC Dallas president Dan Hunt described the signing as another proud moment for the club&#8217;s academy system. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>&#8220;Our commitment has always been to develop young players and provide them with a clear pathway to the professional game. Benji has embraced every step of that journey through hard work, determination and the support of his family.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>Chief soccer officer Andre Zanotta added that Flowers had &#8220;earned this opportunity through his work ethic, commitment and the support of his family,&#8221; calling the milestone an important one for both player and club.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>Flowers joined the FC Dallas academy in 2021 at the age of 10 and made his senior bow for the club&#8217;s MLS Next Pro side, North Texas SC, in March at just 14 years and 11 months old &#8211; only the second-youngest debutant in that team&#8217;s history. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>He has represented the United States up to Under-15 level and was named to the MLS Next All-Star Game last month. His homegrown contract with Dallas runs through the 2030-31 season, with a club option for a further year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>The structure mirrors the pre-arranged deal that saw Philadelphia Union agree to sell teenager Cavan Sullivan to Manchester City for a fee that could reach up to $5million once he turned 18 &#8211; though depending on how Flowers&#8217; add-ons play out, this agreement has the potential to significantly surpass that valuation, underlining the growing willingness of Europe&#8217;s biggest clubs to invest early in American academy talent. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-sm md:text-(17px) leading-relaxed text-gray-700 mb-4 md:mb-5\"><span>Dallas&#8217; own academy has a strong track record of producing top-level talent, having developed the likes of Weston McKennie, Chris Richards, Ricardo Pepi and Tanner Tessmann in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sources briefed on the deal told The Athletic that Dallas will bank an initial fee&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}