Believe it or not, Cole Palmer is on the verge of becoming football’s next big thing, and he doesn’t even have five million followers on X and Instagram (combined) yet.
Palmer played his first real full season in the top flight in 2023 – following his move from Manchester City to Chelsea.
But, the 22 year-old has gone from a rookie to an England International, the best young player in the Premier League and now he’s on the heels of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as football Royalty, all inside 12 months.
In September his popularity was put to the litmus test and voila! the global fandom of football showed they rock with the Manchester-born playmaker; for a second time.
Two weeks ago, He inspired his team to a 4-2 victory against the Seagulls. Palmer scored all of Chelsea’s four goals – a first in the PL era.
The signed match-worn jersey went up for auction on MatchWornShirt, and Palmer is now the first player to break through the dominance of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
According to MatchWornShirt records, Palmer’s signed shirt appears 7th in the top 10 jerseys auctioned by the site.
While Messi and Ronaldo dominate the list from 1-6, the only other name that appears on it prior, is Kylian Mbappe – in 10th spot.
Messi’s PSG shirt vs Reims sold for £49,446 – and is the top of that list. He holds the second and fourth, sixth, Eight and ninth positions, broken only three times by Ronaldo (3. Man United vs Aston Villa and 5. Man United vs Spurs).
Cole Palmer (7) comes in just £15,035 short of Messi’s highest sold shirt.
In context, Palmer’s performance and the delight from fans saw the shirt go from £75 to £34,411 inside one week of the auction.
As per Adrian Bishop (Mail Sport), the Blues home shirt was bought by a Singapore Punter, and proceeds of the will be donated to the Chelsea FC Foundation.
Interestingly, the youngster’s rising profile has even led some analysts to suggest his market value will soon climb to £150 million – Chelsea paid £40 million for the midfielder.
So, which Nigerian Player’s shirt do you reckon could beat the ₦73 million auction price?
