Rival watch

If I can find the Football Leaks documents about Bale's transfer to Los Ladrones it breaks down how a lot of transfer fees are broken down (although most don't have clauses waiving payments for players in order to try and cheat the taxman, which that paperwork does as there's a clause letting us off the last installment for VDV written plain as day yet nobody at UEFA has ever bothered to look into it)

Obviously most transfer fees are broken down into an upfront payment + installments, which is why Jeremy Peace acted like a prize knobhead over Berahino by pretending that's not how fees are paid, although there's a lot of cases where they aren't - case in point, most release clauses are paid in full (in our case Trippier and Wimmer certainly were, and I believe similar can be said for Dembele even if he cost £15m while the clauses for the previous two were £3.5m and £4.3m respectively) which is also why clubs try to negotiate around release clauses as we did with Lo Celso - and this is also why Arsenal made prize oafs of themselves with Suarez by offering £1 over his release clause, meaning Liverpool could turn their offer down

 

I’d be interested in reading that FL article if you find it

My point was, as well, that even in the cases where a fee has to be paid in full up front, there’s a fair few financial institutions now that will offer bridge loans that effectively allow clubs to spread those one off payments out too, obviously with a level of interest. So clubs rarely have to find the money for the whole lot up front themselves these days even if the selling club is receiving a lump sum rather than instalments.

 

They do say that the truth hurts

 

Here's a part of it, which includes the part about them lying about the transfer fee, although not the other bits (the first refusal on Bale, deferring the payment for van der Vaart, an NDA about us revealing what they actually paid, an clause about Bale not talking about Spurs)

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€87m CASH up front!
The price lying was to avoid pissing off Ronaldo, by all accounts. He was no longer the most expensive player ever.

 

With an extra £2-3m back in our pockets on top of that for waiving the final payment due for VDV

The Spanish tax authorities really aren't that good, are they?

 

Let's check in with Man Utd fans, shall we?

 

I'm not sure why there's a veil of secrecy around this, as it's clearly about Son getting hit in the face by McTominay. Very strange.

 

I think you mean Son attacking McTominay's elbow with his face

SOMEBODY COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED

 

I was always on the understanding that release clauses were 'Minimum release fees', so I'm a little surprised to be reading this...

 

It's similar to how Liverpool paid above Naby Keita's release clause, which meant that Monster Energy Dusseldorf could keep him for the season whereas if they paid the release clause he'd have left immediately

It's an odd quirk in how they're structured that paying a pound over the stated fee doesn't trigger the clause or allows the selling club to change the terms

 

That’s utter nonsense. The red ****e agreed a deal for Keita a year before his release clause came into effect, and agreed to pay the clause plus a premium based on where Leipzig finished in the league that season. They did this to ensure they had him tied up before his clause came into effect.

 

This is also complete chod. Suarez didn’t have a release clause in his contract. What he had, was a clause that said if a club offered over £40m for him, then the club was obliged to share this with the player.

 

Arsenal got played by his agent. Wenger admitted it last year.
The bloke told them that Suarez had a clause, so they agreed terms with the player and then tried to trigger it.
It didn't exist. It was just a way to put pressure on Liverpool to extend his contract and agree to sell him abroad the following season.

 

There was a clause, only it wasn’t a release clause, so either the agent mislead them or didn’t understand it.

 

I'm betting that he understood it perfectly, then played dumb to Arsenal.

 

Probably and it achieved the aim of unsettling the player and he got his move a year later.

 

If Suarez didn't have a release clauses, why did John W Henry confirm that Suarez had a release clause?
Luis Suarez transfer news: Arsenal triggered release clause with £40m bid, but Liverpool ignored it reveals owner John W Henry | The Independent | The Independent

 

He was chatting bollocks, that’s why.

Had the player had a buyout clause then his management team would have known that and insisted it was activated when triggered. Only he never had a buyout clause, he had a clause that meant Liverpool were obliged to inform him of any bid over £40m. Here’s the truth of it.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/07/05/arsenal-made-infamous-40m1-transfer-bid-luis-suarez-10118817/

 

Or didn't want to go to Arsenal. Seems plausible to me.