Chelsea insider admits club tried FIFA trick to sign Jude Bellingham

A former Chelsea scout has unveiled how the club tried to sign a young Jude Bellingham from Birmingham City having spotted the huge potential of the midfielder.

Yousuf Sajjad, who has also worked in the scouting set-up at Arsenal and Brentford, was part of the Chelsea staff tasked with youth recruitment at the time when Bellingham was breaking through as a teenager. Speaking with the Rising Ballers podcast, Sajjad talked through the big moments in his career, including courting Bellingham.

The scout admitted it was the most time he had ever spent on a single player when competing with other top clubs to bring Bellingham into the fold. Ultimately, it was German side Borussia Dortmund that won the race and signed Bellingham in 2020.

The England international is now regarded as one of the best players on the planet as he dazzles with Real Madrid in La Liga. At just 20 years old, the best is likely still to come for the former Birmingham man.

Sajjad said: "We went for the real big players. We had a good scouting team that worked very diligently.

"The most work I've ever done on a player was Jude Bellingham. We had reports on him from under-12 to under-16. We had 62 reports from 25 different scouts.

"When we got to a point where we wanted to sign him, so did every top club in the country, it was about presenting something different. We tried to create trends on what's remained the same for him as a player. Pick up what he has developed and what he needs to develop.

"We attached that with footage and had a long video of him playing as an under-12, 13, 14, all the way up, highlighting those traits. At the end we'd put him on a FIFA reel with a Chelsea kit, trying to think outside the box. I spent a lot of time on the end part, presenting the information to players and making it as unique as possible."

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Bellingham eventually joined Borussia Dortmund in July 2020 for a fee of around £25 million. He became the most expensive 17-year-old in the club's history.

Last summer, Real Madrid forked out around £113 million for the star, with add-ons included - with Birmingham City benefiting from a windfall of around £6 million from that deal.

Speaking on what made Bellingham so special, Sajjad added: "His mentality is different. Without even knowing him you could see that.

"The way he would approach games as an under-16 playing in under-21s for example. I went to watch him in one of the games when it was pouring with rain, he was in his shorts and t-shirt ready to compete. You could see he had quality but was also there to compete and progress. That's what would separate him from a lot of players."