Even I am willing to admit, this is a masterstroke by the club, and one that other clubs will surely admire – perhaps not Chelsea – and implement in their own transfers of young players, for no other reason than to keep hold or at least have the option of doing so on their young players.
It is difficult to see if a player that looks good at youth level will react and improve when put into a first team, and sometimes they need time to bed in, and this is something that clubs like United and Real Madrid cannot afford to give. Should the club not wish to send the player out on loan, they could use this strategy of a buy back clause at a pre-arranged and lets fact it nominal fee.
It could also encourage clubs who are on the fence over selling a player to go through with it, on the understanding that they have at the very least the first option to get the player back. Not only this, but it can persuade a player to move from what they consider their home with the knowledge that they can return one day – Romeu has stated that although he is grateful to Chelsea for providing him with the opportunity to play first team football at such a top club, he sees Barcelona as his home and one day wishes to return there. How soon that is remains to be seen, but given the impact he has made at Chelsea so far, they will be hoping it is later rather than sooner!
The article was written by Rebecca Knight for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.
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What kind of rubbish is this?
It’s not a new practice, mind you. Clubs in Spain (not only Barcelona, Madrid’s Granero for example returned based on such a clause) use it for over 10 years already. Because the talent they produce gets better (and even moves to the PL), people elsewhere now also get aware of it. Can’t be compared with Pique/Cesc though, because those left when they were too young to have a contract so ManU/Arsenal picked them up for free without any agreement needed.
And the other club agrees with it, let’s not forget that. If they don’t like the clause, they don’t have to agree with it, it’s not as if they have guns to their headds. Benefit for the buying club is that they get the player on the cheap, so it’s less of a risk. Without buy-back clause, Chelsea would probably have had to pay some 15 millions for an unproven player at the top level. Romeu only got some months of experience at Spain’s 2nd division so they couldn’t know how he would adapt to the PL. Now they got him for 5 millions.
Please don’t flatter Fergussen, he screwed up in letting Pique get away for a joke of a fee, now his price would be no less than 50 mill
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2301707/Man-Utd-offload-Gerard-Pique-to-Barcelona.html