Barcelona Signs 18-Year-Old Winger Jesse Bisiwu from Club Brugge
Barcelona’s hunt for the next great winger has taken them to Belgium – and to a teenager who has barely finished school.
On Friday, the Spanish champions confirmed the signing of 18-year-old Jesse Bisiwu from Club Brugge for a reported fee of €8.5 million, tying him to the club until 30 June 2031. It is a long contract and a clear statement: this is a project, not a punt.
Bisiwu becomes the latest piece in Barcelona’s summer rebuild out wide, following the arrivals of Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi. While those two come ready-made for the first team, the Belgian arrives as a raw, high-ceiling prospect, one the club openly describes as having “a great future ahead” thanks to his pace, power and dribbling.
Born on January 22, 2008, Bisiwu has moved quickly through Belgium’s system. A regular for his country’s youth national teams, he truly broke onto the wider radar at the 2025 UEFA European Under-17 Championship. Belgium reached the semi-finals; Bisiwu made the tournament’s Best XI. Scouts took note. So did Barcelona.
His path has been steady rather than spectacular. Bisiwu started out at OH Leuven before switching to Club Brugge’s academy in 2020, where he grew into one of their standout youngsters. In the UEFA Youth League over the past two seasons, he clocked 14 appearances and scored three goals, showing he could handle continental opposition at his age group.
The real acceleration came with Club NXT, Brugge’s reserve side. Bisiwu made his Belgian Second Division debut in 2023 at just 15, then racked up 36 appearances in the competition before this move to Spain. Those games, against hardened senior professionals, gave him the kind of grounding that pure youth football rarely offers.
He never made a first-team appearance for Club Brugge, but Barcelona are not buying what he has done already as much as what he might become. The plan is for him to start with Barça’s reserve side, away from the immediate glare of the Camp Nou spotlight, and grow into the demands of the club’s style and expectations.
History of Belgian Players at Barcelona
There is history to lean on. With this transfer, Bisiwu joins a small but notable group of Belgians to wear the Barcelona shirt, following defender Thomas Vermaelen and winger Fernand Goyvaerts. Vermaelen arrived as a seasoned international; Goyvaerts as a pioneer in another era. Bisiwu comes as something different again – a modern wide forward built on acceleration, strength and one-on-one threat.
Barcelona have paid real money and committed real years to find out just how far that profile can take him. The question now is simple: can an 18-year-old from Bruges grow into the next great winger in a club that demands nothing less?
