How Wayne Rooney’s Shock Salary As 16-Year-Old Prodigy Compares to Max Dowman

Fast forward 24 years, Arsenal’s Dowman is the Premier League’s newest teen sensation.

Wayne Rooney (left) and Max Dowman have both scored a Premier League goal as 16-year-olds. | Michael Mayhew/Sportsphoto/Allstar/James Gill-Danehouse/Getty Images

Wayne Rooney has revealed that he was being paid the equivalent of just $100 (at today’s rate) each week when he scored the famous goal against Arsenal that announced him to the world in 2002.

Rooney was aged 16 years and 360 days at the time, making him the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history. That record was broken by James Milner for Leeds United only two months later before another Everton youngster, James Vaughan, lowering it again in 2005.

Vaughan’s high watermark stood for more than 20 years, until Max Dowman found the net for Arsenal—ironically against Everton—just 73 days after his 16th birthday.

In England, players younger than 17 cannot sign a professional contract and must remain on what are called scholar terms for players still in school. In Rooney’s day, the going rate was $100. These days, Dowman can earn up to $465.60 on a weekly basis—an annual salary of $24,211.

“When I scored against Arsenal, I think I was on £75 ($100)-a-week,” Rooney recalled on his self-titled BBC podcast. “But then that was four days before my 17th birthday, so I was still a scholar [for the Arsenal game]. I used to borrow money off my mum and dad until I signed my pro contract.”

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Wayne Rooney’s Life-Changing Contracts, Salaries

The game changes when a player hits 17. A newspaper report at the time wrote that, upon signing his first professional contract, Rooney jumped onto a weekly salary of $17,293 (at today’s rate)—almost $900,000 annually. By the time he joined Manchester United from Everton, aged 18, Rooney was being paid not far short of $3.5 million each season.

It is unfathomable money for a player from a modest upbringing who, by his own admission, used to fiddle his travel expense claims when reporting for England’s national youth teams. “I used to find the furthest place away and say that’s where we drove in from,” he laughed.

Dowman, considered a generational talent, is on course for his own massive pay rise when he celebrates his next birthday on Dec. 31, 2026. That said, the boyhood Arsenal fan is reported to have turned down the promise of more money elsewhere to stay loyal to the Gunners.

Until then, however, just over $460 each week will do nicely.

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