Cathy Engelbert’s tenure as commissioner of the WNBA is ending.

Engelbert, 61, released a statement through the league Friday morning announcing she will step down at the end of 2026, concluding a seven-year tenure that saw the league reach new heights of popularity and financial success but was also marked by withering criticism of her leadership.

“Over the years, it has been amazing to watch WNBA players thrive and lead the massive cultural surge around women’s sports,” Engelbert said in her statement. “I retire knowing we have built something bigger, stronger and more enduring than we could have imagined. I am grateful to the WNBA and NBA team owners and staff, players, investors, fans and the powerhouse league office staff, who believed in what this league could become. I retire with immense gratitude and tremendous optimism for the future of the WNBA, with the best yet to come.”

NBA commissioner Adam Silver sent memos to league stakeholders Friday, including the WNBA Board of Governors, informing them that leadership will “begin the process of selecting a new WNBA commissioner later this month,” a league source said. The person was one of a half dozen league sources who spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity about Friday’s developments because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Engelbert drafted a list of internal and external candidates to replace her, and that list was shared with Silver and the WNBA’s Board of Governors. Silver is expected to select Engelbert’s successor in partnership with the Board.

With Engelbert’s contract up at the end of the calendar year, a deadline on her future as commissioner was fast approaching.

In a letter sent Friday morning to WNBA players, which was obtained by The Athletic, Engelbert wrote: “I am grateful for your advocacy and your willingness to challenge us to be bold, listen more closely, and think differently. Those conversations were not always easy, but they were essential. You made this league stronger, and you made me a better leader. …

“I will run through the tape over the next four months and do everything possible to ensure a seamless transition to the next Commissioner.”

Engelbert was named the WNBA’s first commissioner in 2019 after six previous leaders served as president. During her tenure, she brokered two collective bargaining agreements, successfully navigated a pandemic season and helped guide the league’s plans to expand to 18 teams by 2030.

A former CEO of Deloitte, she brought a strong business acumen that produced unprecedented financial gains for the WNBA. She facilitated a $75 million capital raise that was initially viewed as a stabilizing move for the league but has since raised questions about the long-term implications of further convoluting the league’s ownership structure.

Earlier this year, she also oversaw the ratification of a CBA that introduced player salaries that exceeded $1 million for the first time and a groundbreaking revenue-sharing model that tied players’ salaries to revenue in a meaningful way.

In 2024, the WNBA secured an 11-year media rights deal that is now worth a reported $3 billion, but the credit for that has largely gone to NBA leadership, which negotiated both leagues’ deals in tandem.

Silver’s oversight of Engelbert and the WNBA’s overall business added complexity to her role. Though Engelbert has been the face of the WNBA’s triumphs and failures over the last seven years, several high-ranking league stakeholders, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect personal relationships, said many believe Silver controls the levers.

“One of the great misunderstandings is that Cathy has ultimate power,” one high-ranking executive told The Athletic. “She’s in the room, she’s around, but the W makes very few decisions on its own.”

Silver began alerting major stakeholders about Engelbert’s retirement roughly 10 minutes before the WNBA issued a release Friday morning. After Silver’s memo, Engelbert sent messages to league stakeholders, including players, the WNBA Board of Governors, team presidents, general managers and investors.

Players’ reaction to the news was relatively muted because it didn’t come as a major surprise, according to league sources who were granted anonymity to protect personal relationships.

“Cathy Engelbert stepped into the WNBA at a pivotal moment and helped guide the league through a period of extraordinary change,” WNBPA president and L.A. Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike said in a statement released by the association. “Leading through this much change is no small undertaking, and I have great respect for the commitment Cathy brought to the role.”

For all of the unprecedented growth Engelbert has overseen, she has also faced heavy criticism for her overall leadership style, specifically from players who were outspoken about her lack of personal connection with them. In recent years, scrutiny of Engelbert has only grown. She has been booed at WNBA arenas and challenged by prominent players.

Last season, Minnesota Lynx All-Star Napheesa Collier was particularly pointed in her critique, saying the WNBA had “the worst leadership in the world,” while revealing details of alleged private conversations she had with the commissioner. Several players backed Collier’s remarks.

Under Engelbert’s stewardship, off-court issues have consistently threatened to overshadow the league’s on-court product. Star players such as Indiana Fever guards Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham and Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers have had stalkers. Several players have revealed online racist messages and death threats they have received. The league’s officiating is also a frequent subject of criticism, given its handling of high-profile botched calls and the general lack of quality refereeing.

This season, small rallies have taken place around WNBA arenas over the issue of transgender athletes participating in women’s sports after Cunningham expressed her opposition to their inclusion in an ESPN article — though there are no trans athletes in the league. Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom attempted to declare for the WNBA Draft and was later rejected and banned from the Chicago Sky’s arena after verbally sparring with a player.

Though the official process to find Engelbert’s replacement has not begun, the league plans to prioritize a candidate who can build consensus among its stakeholders and, most importantly, with players, according to a source with knowledge of leadership’s expectations who was granted anonymity to protect professional relationships.

Silver praised Engelbert in a statement released by the WNBA.

“Cathy has presided over the WNBA through the most significant period of growth in the league’s 30-year history,” the NBA commissioner said. “We are grateful for Cathy’s leadership and unwavering commitment to the advancement of women’s basketball.”

The 2026-27 Premier League season is just over two weeks old but, after a late flurry of deals, there is a whole new slate of introductions to be made this weekend as new deadline-beating signings are thrown into action for the first time.

Many of the summer’s late signings have had to wait weeks or months to secure their moves. But to make their debuts for the club who signed them, they might not need to twiddle their thumbs long at all: in many cases, the glaring gaps in squads these players were bought to fill mean there is no time to waste.

These are the new signings to watch out for in the Premier League’s matches over the next few days.

Ibrahim Mbaye

Aston Villa fans have spent much of the summer watching their 2025-26 Europa League-winning team being dismantled. But the teenage face of their rebuild should be cause for genuine excitement.

Mbaye is only 18, and the prestige of his former club Paris Saint-Germain’s forward line has limited his minutes to date. His career so far, though — which already includes a goal for Senegal against France at the World Cup, and a late clincher for PSG in a 2-0 win at title rivals Lens that helped seal Ligue 1 in May — promises fearlessness, creativity and skill.

At PSG, sitting behind the likes of Desire Doue in the pecking order, he was an understudy on the largest of stages. At new-look Villa, he can be the star.

Ibrahim Mbaye arrived at Aston Villa from Paris Saint-Germain (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Iliman Ndiaye

Unlike Mbaye, who is arriving at Villa likely as an immediate starter, his international team-mate Ndiaye’s switch from the blue half of Merseyside to the blue half of Manchester presents him with a fight for a spot in new manager Enzo Maresca’s lineup.

Last season, Ndiaye started 32 of Everton’s Premier League matches, the only exceptions being the six played while he was away winning (or perhaps not) the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal. He was indispensable — a stance reinforced by the fact he’d started both their league matches this season before deadline day despite transfer interest.

At City, who he has joined in a deal worth up to £65million ($87.8m), Jeremy Doku and Antoine Semenyo make up one of the most imposing winger pairings in the division and both will be tough to usurp.

However, Maresca confirmed before the season began that Doku was expected to miss two to three weeks with a calf problem. Should Ndiaye be picked at home against Coventry on Saturday, a promoted side who have lost their two league games so far by a combined score of 4-0, he will know it is a golden opportunity to impress.

Iliman Ndiaye has swapped key-player status at Everton for the challenge of breaking into the Manchester City team (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Mykhailo Mudryk

Nobody back at the start of the transfer window in June would have envisaged asking, come early September, “I wonder what Mykhailo Mudryk will do at Tottenham Hotspur?”

First of all, Mudryk is contracted to Chelsea, one of Spurs’ bitterest rivals, and his loan move for the rest of this season — along with defender Tosin Adarabioyo, who has made the same switch but on a permanent deal — marks the first direct transfer between the two London clubs since 2009. Secondly, a few months ago, there was little clarity on when Mudryk could even play football competitively again.

The Ukraine international forward last played a competitive match for Chelsea in November 2024, and has been suspended under anti-doping rules after an adverse finding in a urine sample. He was given a four-year ban, but on July 31 a resolution between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the English Football Association was reached to allow him to return to action.

Mudryk, 25, worked with now Spurs head coach Roberto De Zerbi previously at Shakhtar Donetsk in his homeland. He will hope that if anyone can revive a career that was already uneven at Chelsea and then slammed to an unusual halt, it is the Italian.

Mykhailo Mudryk will be determined to make up for lost time (May James/AFP via Getty Images)

Allan Elias

Many of the new arrivals on this list are already familiar to fans who have watched them make their mark in the Premier League or Champions League. To most Manchester City supporters however, their new winger Allan Elias will come as an unknown quantity.

Allan, as the 22-year-old is known, joins from Palmeiras — the Brazilian club that has churned out young talents including Chelsea’s Estevao and Real Madrid’s Endrick in recent years — without a prolific goalscoring record, but as an established senior starter and with glowing references for his work both with the ball and defensively.

“Our coaches and his team-mates know he can attack and defend, that he can play multiple different roles. He’s already played four or five different positions for the first team; in midfield, at left-back, a winger on either flank,” Palmeiras’ youth academy co-ordinator Joao Paulo Sampaio told The Athletic. “He’s a total footballer, that’s what we call him.”

He will face stiff competition for minutes at City, and it is likely he’s going to need some time to adapt — but it is worth keeping an eye out for his Premier League debut, whether that is against Coventry today or further down the line.

Allan Elias (right) was a surprise arrival at Manchester City (Pedro H. Tesch/Getty Images)

Femi Azeez

It has been a long journey to reach the Premier League for Azeez — although admittedly not distance-wise.

While the likes of Ndiaye and Allan have moved countries or even continents, Azeez has taken a circuitous route around London and several of its surrounding towns before signing for south-coast side Brighton & Hove Albion.

A youth player at Watford, in the city’s commuter belt to the north-west, before plying his trade for London area non-League clubs Northwood, Wealdstone and Hanwell Town, he then moved west of the capital to Reading. After stints there in the Championship and League One, Millwall, from south-east London, signed him in 2024.

He scored 11 goals and registered seven assists in the league in 2025-26 as Millwall reached the promotion play-offs, and was named in the Professional Footballers’ Association’s and EFL’s Championship teams of the season.

Femi Azeez helped propel Millwall to last season’s Championship play-offs (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Brighton have now signed the 25-year-old London-born Nigeria international after agreeing a package in excess of £15million with Millwall. He will add vital depth as they compete in the UEFA Conference League over the coming months.

In a transfer window littered with superstars from across multiple continents, Azeez’s arrival in the Premier League after eight-plus years working his way up the domestic pyramid is a refreshing outlier.

Enzo Fernandez

A player who needs little introduction to English football fans. Whether they are familiar with him for his goal for Argentina in their World Cup semi-final win against England, for his red card against Spain in the final a few days later, for his performances in a Chelsea shirt in the past five seasons, or as the centre of a protracted heavyweight transfer saga this summer, his name is well-known in stands across the Premier League.

Fernandez’s exit from Chelsea, which had been trailed for months, was confirmed on deadline day as he joined Manchester City. He is viewed as the final piece of a staggeringly-expensive midfield rebuild, and has more eyes on him than any of City’s other newcomers.

Enzo Fernandez has a significant fee to justify (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

The 25-year-old has bags of Premier League experience. He is reuniting at City with their new manager and namesake Maresca, who has previously brought the best out of him as Chelsea head coach.

He is arguably destined to be a villain in the eyes of some Chelsea supporters now, and if his reception at their season-opener away to neighbours Fulham was anything to go by, there is not much love for him in other clubs’ stadiums either. He cost an eye-watering amount when he arrived at Chelsea from Benfica and that price has risen again (the deal that took him to City is worth £125million).

Fernandez has already taken much of City’s time and money. He will be expected to start justifying that immediately.

Jack Grealish

Far from new to the Premier League, and not strictly new to the club he’ll be playing for this season, but Jack Grealish’s potential second debut for Everton this weekend bears mentioning for its context — both for player and club.

Grealish’s move from Aston Villa to Manchester City in summer 2021 set a record for a British player at the time, as he cost £100million. It was a superstar fee, and his importance to City’s 2022-23 treble-winning campaign went some way to justifying it, but a major drop-off followed. In the following two seasons, he made only 17 Premier League starts and scored four league goals.

By summer 2025, a way back for him at the Etihad was hard to see.

Enter David Moyes and Everton, with the offer of a season-long loan from which nobody knew quite what to expect. At first, Grealish’s impact was superb; The Athletic’s Everton correspondent Patrick Boyland wrote that he represented a “beacon of hope” for fans. Then came a dip in form and, cruelly, a foot injury in January that ended his season.

Jack Grealish has returned to Everton (Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

But it has proven not to be the end of the story for Grealish and Everton. A second loan, for the remainder of the current campaign, was confirmed on an otherwise traumatic deadline day for Everton.

For Grealish, with his City contract expiring at the end of this season, this is his final chance to show other clubs what he can bring to the pitch at 30 (he’s 31 next week). And for Everton? Given how the rest of the window went for them, and with key man Ndiaye’s exit, even more hope might be pinned on him than before.

Last season’s injury left a sense of unfinished business, and how this unexpected bond between Grealish and Everton plays out will be a story to watch throughout the season — starting with Manchester United’s visit on Sunday.

Matias Fernandez-Pardo

After a hectic, turbulent summer, some Newcastle United fans will be relieved the window is closed — and excited to see their club’s final addition of it take to the field.

Fernandez-Pardo, 21, was Newcastle’s eighth signing since last season and the supporters will hope he is the final piece of a puzzle that was thrown into the air and gradually reassembled over the past two months. His versatility is a major asset, with the Belgian forward comfortable across the front line, as is his speed — a characteristic that already looks key to Newcastle under new coach Mathias Jaissle.

Acquiring him was by no means certain.

Newcastle missed out on Johan Manzambi to Aston Villa and Victor Munoz to Liverpool earlier in the summer, and were wary that a deal sources described as “extremely difficult” would get over the line. This signing has been a long time in the making, and was only completed on the final day of the window. But he has been long coveted on Tyneside — Eddie Howe, before his departure, was also extremely keen on him.

It took all summer, but Newcastle have landed their man, and Fernandez-Pardo could make his debut as soon as Saturday’s lunchtime home match against Bournemouth.

Matias Fernandez-Pardo has joined Newcastle from Lille of France (Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)

Malick Fofana

The drama might have largely passed Fofana himself by, but the tug-of-war for the forward’s signature was one of the sagas of deadline day.

Premier League interest in Fofana, previously of Lyon, is nothing new. Chelsea and Everton were having a good look at him last summer, but no move materialised. On Monday, following Lyon’s failure to qualify for the Champions League, The Athletic reported that Arsenal were weighing up a move for the 21-year-old winger. However, they were unwilling to meet the French side’s asking price.

Malick Fofana is an exciting addition for Sunderland (Olivier Chassignole/AFP via Getty Images)

Cut to Tuesday morning, transfer deadline day, and Fofana was set for a move to Sunderland. A fee and a five-year contract were agreed. But Crystal Palace, whose manager Pierre Sage had worked with Fofana at Lyon, tried to hijack the deal.

After hours of uncertainty, a joint medical, two private jets — and for Fofana, a day spent at home playing video games — he plumped for Wearside over south London. His debut could come away to Brentford today.

The story can be traced back to the council-run park, with its faded white markings and weather-beaten goalposts, where an ordinary boy with extraordinary talent came into view almost 20 years ago.

Up the hill, past the cemetery and through the metal gates, word quickly got round that the then five-year-old Morgan Rogers was on another level to the other kids playing on the pitches of Halas Hawks Under-Sevens in the Stourbridge & District Youth Football League.

“Morgan was different to everybody else,” recalls Brian Wilkes, a club stalwart and long-standing committee member. “He was stronger. He knew how to shield the ball. And he had a tremendous shot — if there was a penalty shootout, we had to put an adult in the goal (against him) because it wasn’t fair on the other kids.”

Photographs from the time offer a glimpse into Rogers’ early life, taking his first steps on the journey that has brought him to Chelsea this summer as the most expensive footballer in the English game.

One picture shows a schoolboy Rogers at the Hawks’ annual presentation evening, wearing a tie in their red and blue colours. Others show him, aged six, in a tracksuit top with ‘MR’ on the breast. Or there are snaps of his trophies from the 2009-10 season – one for the most man-of-the-match awards, another as the team’s leading scorer.

“He joined us in 2008 and scored 62 goals in his first season,” says Wilkes. “Even from 20 or 30 yards, he could strike the ball so cleanly. The manager moved him into defence for his second season, and he still managed to get 42 goals.”

Morgan Rogers’ first pitch at Homer Hill on the outskirts of Birmingham (Daniel Taylor/The Athletic)

The scene is Homer Hill, in the Cradley district of Halesowen, West Midlands, just a misplaced kick from the primary school, Colley Lane, where Rogers’ childhood affinity to local club West Bromwich Albion never stopped him trying to re-enact the stepovers of Cristiano Ronaldo, his first football hero, in the playground.

Albion’s ground, The Hawthorns, is just a few miles away — England’s highest stadium, at 168 metres above sea level. Homer Hill, as the name suggests, is also at no little altitude, and bitterly exposed to the elements when winter arrives. Which might explain why another picture of the six-year-old Rogers shows him wrapped up warm in a woolly hat.

Rogers, aged six, in his Halas Hawks kit (Halas Hawks)

A few miles in the other direction is Stourbridge, the town where a young Jude Bellingham used to line up for one of the Hawks’ neighbours.

“They’re good friends now,” says Pauline Hickman, another long-standing part of the club’s operation. “The No 9 bus route takes you from Halesowen to Stourbridge. So, during the World Cup, we nicknamed Morgan and Jude as ‘The No 9 Boys’.”

Did they ever face each other in a Hawks-Stourbridge derby? It seems feasible, though nobody here seems absolutely certain. Bellingham, of course, was quickly snapped up by Birmingham City’s academy, whereas Rogers was only at Hawks for two years before West Brom invited him to join their youth system.

In 2017, Jude Bellingham and Morgan Rogers took this photo together while playing for England U15s 📸🔙

9 years later, they’re at the World Cup together ❤️👏 pic.twitter.com/OqbdAwfG8R

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) June 3, 2026

He also had an offer from Birmingham’s Aston Villa at the same time but, looking back, the following years were really the making of Rogers.

“He was always a very intelligent and articulate lad,” says Mike Scott, then one of the coaches at West Brom. “We used to say to him, ‘You’ll be a good coach one day’, because he was so intelligent. He really understood the game and, for a boy of that age, he was very curious; always asking questions.”

Scott, now head of academy coaching at Birmingham City, was one of several West Brom coaches who were instrumental in the youngster’s development, from under-nines up to the age of 17.

“He was always classed as one of our elite players,” says Scott. “There was a period, around the age of 13 and 14, when he slowed a little as he went through his growth. Then everything suddenly clicked.”

By the age of 15, Rogers was not only in the England Under-16s squad, while still taking his GCSEs at school, but also training with West Brom’s first team.

“I remember saying to him, ‘You need to make sure it doesn’t go to your head’,” says Scott. “You get some young players who train with the first team and think they have made it. Not Morgan, though. He was always very focused.

“At 16, he started the season with the under-18s and, in the first fixture, he scored two at Newcastle. It was too easy for him. The following game, we played Liverpool, and it was too easy for him again.

“After that, he went up to the under-21s, but he’d still play in the FA Youth Cup, and he was never one of those players who’d struggle if they were asked to come back down (an age level). He would just be the best player.

“We played Lincoln on the way to the 2019 FA Youth Cup semi-finals, and he must have beaten five players for one goal. Then we were drawn against Arsenal, with Bukayo Saka, in the fifth round and Morgan came into his own again.

“In the quarter-finals, against Everton, he was the standout player again. Then we played Manchester City in the semis, and that was probably one of the games that convinced City to think, ‘OK, we’re going to put in a bid for him’. They had been trailing him for a long time.”

Morgan Rogers’ abilities were evident at West Brom as a teenager (Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Academy reports from the time detail the player’s “fantastic mentality”, making his West Brom first-team debut at the age of 16 – an 82nd-minute substitute in a February 2019 FA Cup fourth-round tie against Brighton & Hove Albion – and winning various trophies, including the National Schools Cup, with Sandwell Academy, the secondary school that runs a football education programme in tandem with the club.

That attitude has served Rogers well during the following years, signing for City shortly after his 17th birthday, then moving on to Middlesbrough and truly blossoming after a February 2024 move to Villa, launching his senior England career in the process.

“He’s the best player I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with and see develop,” Scott concludes. “And the kid has earned what has come his way, playing in a World Cup semi-final and being worth all that money, because he had that drive from a young age. He was a coach’s dream, really.”

In this corner of the Midlands, a lot of the people who know the Rogers family talk about the positive influence of his parents, Deborah and Howard, a former firefighter who was known as ‘H’ to his colleagues at Brierley Hill fire station during 30-plus years in the job.

Among the tattoos on Rogers’ left arm, there are the dates of his parents’ birthdays, as well as those of his brothers, Daniel and Ash. Scott recalls there being an “excellent and supportive” family network. Rogers himself has talked about how “my parents did everything for me … they took me to every camp, every game, every training session”.

Well done fire fighter Howard Rogers completing thirty years service today with the wmfs. pic.twitter.com/1BaRo9ktXc

— Brierley Hill Fire Station (@WMFSBrierleyH) July 7, 2016

As for the other influences in his life, Rogers made sure to pay tribute when he heard that Bob Hickman, his first coach at Halas Hawks, had passed away in April. Bob was Pauline’s husband, one of the Hawks’ driving forces since the club’s formation in 1980.

“The football family has kept me going,” Pauline tells The Athletic. “Then my son, Rob, came in with his phone one day and said, ‘Mum, you better sit down, I’ve got something to show you.’ It was Morgan’s Twitter account. He’d heard what had happened and posted three little hearts.

“He was in Italy at the time with Villa, preparing for the Europa League quarter-final against Bologna, and it meant the world to me that he still found the time to remember Bob.”

She and Bob were season-ticket holders at Villa Park.

“I’d always wear something from Halas Hawks to games,” she says, pointing to the club’s badge on her shorts. “So when Morgan started playing for Villa, I wanted to tell everyone in the ground, ‘We coached him!’ I was so proud, and I’m still proud, even though he’s now at Chelsea. To me, he’s still got Bob’s spirit with him.”

Morgan Rogers in his old Halas Hawks kit (Halas Hawks)

The funeral took place on the day of the Europa League final.

“Morgan scored,” says Pauline, recalling Villa’s 3-0 win over German club Freiburg in Istanbul. And now she can smile. “We all said, ‘That’s for Bob’.”

A picture is emerging of a 24-year-old who has never forgotten his roots. Rogers even interrupted his holiday last year to send a video message, via his mum, to the Hawks’ end-of-season awards event.

“He wanted the kids to know that he remembered being in their position, sitting at the presentation, and that if they put in the hard work and had a bit of luck, they could also live their dreams and achieve what he had done,” says Wilkes. “We showed it five times over one weekend, to around 650 players and 1,500 parents, and it got a standing ovation each time.”

Pauline Hickman and Brian Wilkes were significant figures in Rogers’ development at Halas Hawks (Daniel Taylor/The Athletic)

This weekend, Rogers is set to take on Premier League champions Arsenal, who also showed serious interest in signing him over the summer. Instead, he went to Chelsea, linking up again with Cole Palmer, a close pal from their days in City’s academy. He has settled in seamlessly: Xabi Alonso’s team have won their first two Premier League fixtures, scoring seven goals in the process, and the wearer of their No 17 shirt has been at the heart of it, starting both and contributing a goal and an assist.

As for Halas Hawks, they established themselves as the largest junior club in the area, running 52 teams for boys and girls aged six to 17, before merging last year with semi-professional Halesowen Town of the Southern League Premier Division (Central), which is six rungs below the Premier League.

Halesowen, like Chelsea, used to have their own ‘Shed’ terrace at their home ground, The Grove, but junior matches are still played at Homer Hill, where a dedicated team of volunteers store their equipment in a small red-brick building by the side of the main pitch.

It is, in short, a classic scene of grassroots English football.

“If there’s a game on, you’ll see all the little stalls by the side of the pitch,” says Pauline. “That’s how they get their money — selling coffee and tea. It’s a world away from £60million transfers in the Premier League.”

Rogers celebrates scoring his first official Chelsea goal at Fulham last week (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Or, indeed, £117million in Rogers’ case. It’s mind-boggling money – a transfer record for a British player – and a shame, perhaps, that the team where everything began won’t see a penny of it.

“When Morgan left West Brom to go to Manchester City, it was for £4million,” says Wilkes. “So we wrote to City asking if they would consider providing us with a percentage of the transfer fee. It was tongue-in-cheek. We weren’t expecting anything — ‘We’ll try it on’, we thought — so we asked for something really silly, like 0.0001 per cent. It would have worked out at £400. But we got nothing back. No reply, nothing. Not even a bag of balls, which would have been a godsend at our level.”

Maybe Chelsea could spare a few balls. Rogers’ first involvement at Halas Hawks, aged five, was in the Little Kickers section. David Davis, the former Wolverhampton Wanderers (another local pro club) and Birmingham defender, is also an ex-Hawk, as is Josh Marsh, a striker for fourth-tier Crewe Alexandra.

Halas, in case you are wondering, is the medieval word for Halesowen, the town where future Manchester United, Leeds United and England winger Lee Sharpe also grew up. There aren’t too many Chelsea fans here. But it is fair to say a new hero has emerged in a part of the Midlands that, until now, has been better known for its industry — chain-making, mostly — and being one of the country’s biggest towns (population: 60,000) without a railway station.

“We see so many boys and girls wearing England shirts these days with ‘Rogers’ and No 17 on the back,” says Wilkes. “Even as a five-year-old, you could see how comfortable he was with the ball. And that has never changed.

“What you see now with Chelsea and, before that, Villa, he did that with us.”