{"id":318742,"date":"2026-02-26T18:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/318742\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T18:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:30:10","slug":"fai-complete-major-coup-as-top-rated-chelsea-talent-switches-allegiance-from-northern-ireland-to-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/318742\/","title":{"rendered":"FAI complete major coup as top-rated Chelsea talent switches allegiance from Northern Ireland to Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Breaking\u00a0|\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Chris Atherton signed his first professional deal with Chelsea\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/92941f74-0689-41cb-b229-7564dd2e41aa.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Chris Atherton signed his first professional deal with Chelsea<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Chelsea academy winger Chris Atherthon has committed his international future to the Republic of Ireland after successfully switching his allegiance from Northern Ireland, Fifa have confirmed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The 17-year-old, who hails from Armagh, had represented Northern Ireland at U-17 and U-16 levels but has now transferred to represent the Boys in Green instead. Atherton previously went on trial for Ireland in Dublin in 2021 and impressed FAI coaches, but the IFA\u2019s head of elite youth performance, Andy Waterworth, persuaded the player\u2019s family to commit to Northern Ireland at that stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breaking\u00a0|\u00a0 Chris Atherton signed his first professional deal with Chelsea Chelsea academy winger Chris Atherthon has committed his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,898,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-318742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-latest-news-ticker","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}