Whitechapel
Famous Last Words
I see your point, but I ask you also consider this.
The buy back clause being inserted also makes the initial fee for us cheaper. Using your example fees. £15m may allow us to get Palmer permanently with a buy back clause because we give City that insurance policy.
However, remove the buy back clause we’re probably looking £25m to be ours outright. Now let’s say he doesn’t do well and gets one goal and one assist all season. With the buy back clause we don’t stand to lose much by the time we maybe salvage £5m by selling him.
However the £25m with no buy back clause and a bad season and we’re in trouble.
The way I see it, it’s an insurance policy for both sides, especially with a young, relatively unproven, player.
We could probably get players to sign for less money a week if we inserted buy-out clauses in to our contract.
Entirely kneecapping our position if/when we have to sell to skimp on money now will never seem like a good idea to me, especially with the way transfer fees are going constantly
I think with buy backs, they can be negotiated to be a good deal for the buying club, but there's a huge variation in the T's and C's. If it was, we're buying him for £10m and there's a buy back for £60m, that's probably a good deal.
I'd say most Saints fans would say they are happy they've taken on Livramento despite the reported existence of the buy back clause. It all totally depends on the details of the deal negotiated.
If the buyback was £60m then the only reason City would activate it is because he’s worth £60m or more. It’s still not a good deal for us, imo.