Max Dowman is set to sign scholarship terms for Arsenal and, as he graduates through the club’s wage structure, the 15-year-old has an extraordinarily lucrative future ahead of him.
The playmaker is the latest starlet produced by the academy at Hale End, whose alumni in recent years include Bukayo Saka, Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Eberechi Eze. And that’s just the contingent currently involved with the Arsenal first team.
Five of the 10 most lucrative player sales in Arsenal history are academy products too:
Player Joined Year Fee (before add-ons)
Cesc Fàbregas Barcelona 2011 £30m
Alex Iwobi Everton 2019 £28m
Emile Smith Rowe Fulham 2024 £27m
Folarin Balogun Monaco 2023 £25.7m
Eddie Nketiah Crystal Palace 2024 £25m
Joe Willock Newcastle 2021 £25m
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Given his connection with the club having been born into a family of Gooners, Arsenal fans hope that Max Dowman can affect the first team long-term rather than being moved on for profit.
But either way, the news that he has agreed scholarship terms will be welcomed on the terraces and by those in charge of setting the playing budget at the Emirates alike.
As relayed by The Athletic’s David Ornstein, Dowman has rejected overtures from rivals in order to stay in North London, where he will now progress from the schoolboy terms he has been on so far.
Max Dowman ahead of Arsenal's Premier League match against Liverpool
Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Once the player turns 17 on 31 December next year, he will be eligible for his first professional contract. And Ornstein’s report suggests that is now essentially a formality.
Scouted by Real Madrid since he was 12 years old, Dowman has three senior appearances for Arsenal and is the second-youngest player ever to turn out for the club, after Nwaneri.
When he turns pro, he will enter football’s dizzying player wages space race, where the Premier League – the world’s biggest-spending league by an order of magnitude – spent £4bn in the last financial year.
In 2023-24, Arsenal’s total payroll was £328m. They will release their figures for 2024-25 in the spring.
Chart showing Arsenal's revenue vs their squad cost with the introduction of PSR and FFP
Arsenal squad cost vs revenue vs PSR Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
Industry sources have told TBR Football that while Dowman will likely have a more modest basic wage initially, performance-related bonuses and image rights will almost certainly take his ultimate salary into the seven-figure range.
But in the wider sweep of the club’s overall wage bill, the youngster will still be in the shallow end of the pool.
“Based on my figures, I’m looking at an average weekly wage of £157,000,” says Liverpool University football finance lecturer and Price of Football author Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to TBR Football.
Arsenal v Villarreal - Pre-Season Friendly
Photo by Eddie Keogh/Getty Images
“If you go back just to two seasons, it was £102,000-a-week. The fact that wages have increased by around 50 per cent in 24 months… There aren’t that many industries where that kind of investment is taking place.
“Yet, at the same time, the wages-to-revenue metric has fallen. The club acknowledges that revenue drives investment in talent. It’s also a manifestation of Champions League prize money. It’s so important.”
Typically, an elite club like Arsenal’s first-team wage bill accounts for 70-75 per cent of total payroll.
Significantly, UEFA now enforces a soft cap on wages and transfer-related costs as a percentage of revenue. As of 2025, that limit is 70 per cent.
And while Arsenal’s wages-to-turnover ratio is one of the lowest in the Premier League, the club is relatively close to the proscribed limit for clubs competing in European competitions.
Chart showing Premier League clubs wages-to-turnover ratios for TBR Football
Wages-to-turnover ratio Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
The Premier League is expected to introduce a similar system with a more lenient cap of 85 per cent, although clubs have voted to delay that process until 2026-27 at the very earliest.
A proposal to limit clubs’ spending to anchor maximum spending to a 5x multiple of what the bottom-placed team receives in central payments from the Premier League has also been rejected. For now.
But in the long term, as owners like Arsenal’s Stan Kroenke look to get costs under control and eventually make money from their clubs on a day-to-day basis, stricter Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) surely beckon.