{"id":236564,"date":"2025-07-04T05:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T05:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/236564\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T05:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T05:03:10","slug":"chelsea-glenavon-confirm-uks-youngest-senior-player-chris-atherton-has-moved-to-stamford-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/236564\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea: Glenavon confirm UK’s youngest senior player Chris Atherton has moved to Stamford Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Glenavon’s 16-year-old forward Chris Atherton has left Mourneview Park to join Chelsea.<\/b><\/p>\n

The Northern Ireland Under-17 international made headlines in September 2022 when he became the youngest senior footballer<\/a> in the United Kingdom at 13 years and 329 days old.<\/p>\n

The teenager, who joined the Glenavon academy at four years old, broke the senior record when he came on as a second-half substitute for the Lurgan Blues during a 6-0 win over Dollingstown in the BetMcLean Cup.<\/p>\n

Atherton beat the record set by Jordan Allan, who played for Airdrie aged 14 years and 191 days.<\/p>\n

He was a first-team regular for Glenavon throughout the 2024-25 season, scoring his first Irish Premiership goal against Loughgall in March, as Paddy McLaughlin’s side finished 10th in the table.<\/p>\n

Glenavon announced his exit on X, with a post stating: “Chris Atherton – blue still the colour.<\/p>\n

“We can confirm that academy product Chris Atherton has left the club to sign for Chelsea We wish him the best in his career & hope he and his family won’t be strangers at MVP.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glenavon’s 16-year-old forward Chris Atherton has left Mourneview Park to join Chelsea. The Northern Ireland Under-17 international made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-236564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114793218322804587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}