Birmingham City retired Jude Bellingham's shirt when he was just seventeen
Clubs usually retire a shirt number to honour a long career. Birmingham City retired Jude Bellingham's number 22 after one season, when he was 17, as he left for Dortmund. The teenager had already become their youngest ever first-team player and youngest scorer, and bigger records were waiting in Germany and Spain.
Bellingham was born in Stourbridge in the West Midlands in June 2003 and joined Birmingham as an under-8. His father, a police sergeant, was a prolific scorer in non-league football, and a grandfather who had served in the army in Berlin shaped his values; his younger brother Jobe also plays. He grew up idolising Zinedine Zidane. At 14 he was already playing in the club's under-18 side.
His first-team debut came in August 2019 at 16 years and 38 days. Weeks later, as a substitute, he scored the winner against Stoke. Manchester United reportedly bid 20 million pounds in January 2020 and were rebuffed. He chose Borussia Dortmund, drawn by how it trusted young players such as Jadon Sancho, and the initial fee of about 25 million pounds made him the most expensive 17-year-old ever.
In Germany he kept breaking age records. He scored on his debut to become Dortmund's youngest scorer, and against Lazio became the youngest Englishman to start a Champions League game. By 2022–23 he was the league's player of the season, though Dortmund lost the title on the final day on goal difference while he watched, injured, from the bench. That autumn he became the first Englishman to win the Kopa Trophy, for the world's best player under 21, and was fined 40,000 euros for comments about a referee.
Real Madrid paid a base fee of 103 million euros in 2023, and a sell-on clause sent about 6 million pounds more to Birmingham. In his first season he was Madrid's top league scorer as they won the league and the Champions League, and he finished third in the 2024 Ballon d'Or. At the 2026 World Cup his seven goals set a record for an England player at a single tournament.
Source: Jude Bellingham
