Blackburn Rovers set to lose player to Premier League giants Chelsea in £1m transfer | OneFootball

The Premier League giants have agreed a fee to take the 13-year-old wunderkind to Stamford Bridge after months of pursuit.

With a 1-0 win against Preston North End on Friday night, which came about thanks to a 95th-minute winner from Yuki Ohashi, representing their third win in four games, Blackburn Rovers' fortunes have improved since the club took the decision to relieve Valerien Ismael of his duties at the start of the month.

There are now five points between Rovers and the Championship relegation places, and the two clubs immediately below them in the Championship table, West Bromwich Albion and Leicester City, have been unable to turn their slumps in form around.

For a club like Blackburn, incoming money from transfer fees is critical. The club doesn't receive Premier League parachute money, and their struggles to fill Ewood Park in recent years mean that match-day revenue is also deflated in comparison with other clubs in the division.

When the club finished in seventh place in the table last season, it came off the back of accounts which confirmed £22.9 million in player sales the previous year.

Chelsea and Blackburn Rovers have agreed a fee for teenage sensation Camden Schaper

Reporting on his Patreon this morning, journalist Alan Nixon reports that Chelsea and Blackburn Rovers have agreed a £1 million fee for South African-born starlet Camden Schaper.

Nixon has reported that the South African-born attacking midfielder has recently been given a call-up for England at youth level, and that Chelsea have been chasing the 14-year-old's signature for a number of months.

Schaper has stayed at Ewood Park throughout protracted negotiations between the two clubs and has continued to play within their youth system.

The young attacking midfielder and playmaker has seriously impressed since his family relocated from South Africa to England in 2024, scoring 45 goals and providing 65 assists for the Rovers' under-14 team throughout the 2024-25 season.

£1 million may be a calculated gamble from Chelsea for Blackburn Rovers' Camden Schaper

Negotiations between Chelsea and Blackburn Rovers over the future of Camden Schaper have been going on for a long time.

It was reported by The Sun as long ago as last June that Chelsea had beaten off a challenge from Manchester City to agree a £700,000 fee for the young player, and it had been expected that Schaper would be heading for Etihad Stadium because his younger brother Astin is already in the youth system with City.

These reports, however, turned out to be somewhat premature. Rovers have held out for more for the exciting young player, who's already been capped by England at youth level, and the new reports indicate that they were correct to do so.

In a world in which the most talented players are bought and sold for nine-digit sums, Blackburn Rovers fans could be concerned that their club has been undercut by a fee of £1 million for such an outstanding young talent, but this sort of fee reflects that transfer fees for young players always carry an element of gamble to them, and the strength of the lure of moving to the academy of a club such as Chelsea cannot be underestimated either.

There will be disappointment that the player may never turn out in a Rovers shirt, and at 13 years of age, it's unlikely that he'll be playing first-team football anywhere for at least a couple of years as he hones his skills at the Stamford Bridge academy.

But £1 million for a young player will provide a boost to Blackburn's accounts, money that will come in very handy indeed come the end of the season, when the club looks to overhaul their playing squad ahead of a 2026-27 season which they are looking increasingly to spend in the Championship.