Cole Palmer has been tipped to become a future winner of the Ballon d’Or by Chelsea’s co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart.
Palmer joined Chelsea from Manchester City for £42million last summer and went on to score 25 goals in a breakout first season with the West London club.
The 22-year-old, who is under contract at Chelsea until June 2033, scored for England in the Euro 2024 final in July and has been an excellent start to the domestic campaign under new Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca, with six goals already this term.
Palmer has been shortlisted for the Ballon d’Or this year and was this month named England’s men’s player of the year for 2024.
Asked in an interview with The Telegraph whether Palmer can one day win the Ballon d’Or, Winstanley said: “No doubt he can, no doubt. He’s got a bit of maverick personality on the pitch, you can see that. You can see it in training, you can see it in the games. He’s got that ability.”
Stewart said: “We didn’t think necessarily that we’d be able to get him here really, did we? There was a feeling that ‘No, Cole Palmer won’t be for sale’.
“We’d been speaking about him throughout that window and then as it came towards the latter stage of the window, we felt like we wanted to do something else and do something around that area of the pitch. He came up again and we all said ‘let’s go for it, let’s see what’s possible’.
“And then there seemed to be a little bit of feedback that there could be something there.”
Winstanley added: “We’ve all been aware of Cole since he was very young. He’d consistently flagged up on the profile of player that we were looking for in that position, but as we headed through the window, when you check in and you get told ‘No, not for sale, not for sale’.
“We weren’t going to get him on loan and that wouldn’t have suited us either. We would have always preferred a permanent deal with someone like Cole. Then you enter a period when all of a sudden there’s a sense this might have some legs, ‘let’s push, let’s go’.
“And then once you set off on that journey, you’ve got to try to see it through if there’s a chance. To be fair to Cole, he showed great desire to come here and that’s the sort of player we want, the personality and the desire to come here.”
