Liverpool star-in-the-making Rio Ngumoha is ‘banned’ from the dressing room despite signing his first professional contract for the club.
The Reds confirmed that Ngumoha had signed his first deal for the Premier League champions on Thursday, almost a month after he celebrated his 17th birthday.
“Rio Ngumoha has signed his first professional contract with Liverpool FC,” a statement read on Liverpool’s official site.
“The forward, who arrived at the Academy in September 2024 having previously been at Chelsea, has made five senior appearances for the Reds to date – most recently in Tuesday’s 2-1 Carabao Cup win over Southampton.
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“Ngumoha netted a 100th-minute winner in a 3-2 victory at Newcastle United last month, on the occasion of his Premier League debut.”
Ngumoha going from strength to strength
The talented forward moved to Anfield last summer from Chelsea, where he’d been on the books since the age of eight.
The Blues were gutted to lose Ngumoha, who would go on to become the youngest player to start a first-team game when he featured from the outset against Accrington in the FA Cup earlier this year.
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Ngumoha’s career, while in its infancy, has gone from strength to strength in recent months, having been included in the club’s pre-season tour to Hong Kong and Japan.
The teenager also became the youngest goalscorer in the club’s history when he came off the bench to net the winner in a 3-2 victory at Newcastle, and became their youngest player in European competition after his appearance off the bench against Atletico Madrid last week.
His rapid rise to stardom has seen him rewarded with the first professional contract of his career.
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Ngumoha, however, is currently banned from the Liverpool dressing room.
Not due to ill-discipline or as punishment by head coach Arne Slot but due to the fact both Liverpool and Ngumoha must follow a strict rule that means the forward and his teammates are unable to share a changing room.
FA guidelines stipulate that players under the age of 18, who are legally defined as children, do not change alongside adults.
Arsenal were made to follow 'unbelievable' rule
It was a rule that Mikel Arteta deemed 'unbelievable' earlier in the year when Ethan Nwaneri was unable to get changed alongside his fellow Arsenal first-teamers.
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"Ethan cannot be in our dressing room still, which is unbelievable. He needs to get dressed somewhere else, even on match day,” the Gunners boss said last season.
Nwaneri has since turned 18 and can now use the Arsenal first-team dressing room on matchdays.
The England hopeful has made four competitive appearances for Arsenal this season, featuring off the bench in meetings with Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Manchester City.
That said, Max Dowman, who doesn’t turn 16 until the end of the year and became the second youngest player in Premier League history after Nwaneri when he featured from the bench against Leeds last month, is unable to get changed alongside the Gunners’ senior squad.
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Similarly, Ngumoha, who doesn’t turn 18 until next August, is unable to enter the Liverpool dressing room between now and then.
Topics: Football, Premier League, Liverpool
Ben McAleer