.6m signing for Tottenham on Tuesday has definitely got people talking.
Though an unknown in England, the fee that Spurs will pay to sign the teenager from St Patrick’s Athletic is already a record for a League of Ireland player, and could even rise to £3.2m in add-ons.
After making his debut as a 15-year-old, Melia has featured over 50 times in senior football in the Republic of Ireland and scored 10 goals already, courting interest from some of Europe’s biggest clubs with the north London giants getting the deal over the line.
Fans will have to wait until January 2026 to see the 17-year-old in their jersey, but his talent in Ireland is already widely know and footballing pedigree runs in the family.
His father Martin was a renowned footballer locally in their native Wicklow while former Republic of Ireland international Clive Clarke, who played over 200 league games for Stoke City, is his uncle and agent.
Melia, the next footballer to come from the family’s production line, caught the eye of coaches and scouts from a young age, scoring “four of five goals” per game growing up in Wicklow.
“I saw at an early age that Mason would go straight to the top through his sheer love of football,” Hughie Nolan, one of his first coaches at Newtown Juniors who also worked with Clarke and Melia senior, told BBC Sport.
“I knew he would be good, people always talk about the next Roy Keane or Robbie Keane and usually I don’t see it, but I knew he would be good but maybe not this good.
“Every time he has stepped up a level, he has taken it in his stride and nothing has fazed him.”
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