It was a deal that was done almost as quickly as it was mooted as a possibility.
While the Liverpool transfer focus had long been suggested to have been focusing on the acquired Alexis Mac Allister and targets Manu Kone and Khephren Thuram, the interest in Dominik Szoboszlai started to gain traction early last week before the Hungarian star was unveiled as the Reds’ latest number eight on Sunday.
Liverpool’s awareness of his €70m release clause was made known last week, with some suggestions being that it might be too much for Reds owners Fenway Sports Group to sanction. In reality, the deal was done in a matter of days and Szoboszlai was pictured in Liverpool red almost as quickly as he was first linked.
The release clause was key. There was a clock ticking against the Reds with Szoboszlai’s clause expiring at the end of June, after which time his former club RB Leipzig would have had the ability to reject any interest or hold Liverpool’s feet to the fire for a price that the German side may have felt better reflected his standing in European football. Either way, a swift deal would not have been done and the leverage would have been with Leipzig.
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Release clauses are commonplace in football. Sometimes it is to the benefit of the clubs themselves, with the likes of the major Spanish sides having long placed enormous buyout clauses in the contracts of their top players in order to fend off interest from any European rivals with deep pockets.
Largely, though, the benefit rests with the player, with Liverpool’s moves for Mac Allister and Szoboszlai both involving release clauses, removing the need for complex and potentially costly negotiations.
Speaking to the ECHO, sports lawyer Daniel Geey, the author of the book ‘Done Deal’, said: “In the case of the Spanish sides there has long been clauses inserted for a high buyout in line with Spanish law. For a long time they seemed unobtainable, and Barcelona didn’t think people would pay the huge sums of money to acquire Neymar Jnr before Paris Saint-Germain did. All that has happened there is the buyout clauses have been raised to sums which no club could pay, as we’ve recently seen with Vinicius Jnr.
“Often clauses are from a position of player strength. If you use Mac Allister as an example, he signed a new deal with Brighton & Hove Albion in October last year before the World Cup. That was despite interest that would arrive this summer. For Mac Allister he would have increased his salary, perhaps received a signing on fee too, as well as having inserted an obtainable release clause in his deal so that any major interest couldn’t be rejected.
“While the fee received was lower than what Brighton would have commanded in the market without a release clause, it was pre-agreed. Had he not signed that deal then he could have run his contract down and Brighton would have risked getting a lot less for him than the £35m that they eventually got.
“In the case of Szoboszlai it is a lot of money and it isn’t like RB Leipzig aren’t benefiting from it. It’s the most expensive sale in their history, with the next most expensive being Liverpool’s signing of Naby Keita in 2018.”
Rather than entering into a potential bidding war or having their summer plans held up while they bargained with a club who didn’t want to part with their most valuable asset, Liverpool had to make a snap decision on whether or not to trigger the clause, with the club banking on his future potential, at just 22, seeing his value climb beyond what they will pay for him, meaning a success in terms of recruitment strategy.
“Sometimes the detail is key,” explained Geey.
“How is the deal paid? How many instalments are there? A lot of the time the selling clubs in this instance want to have as much of the sum up front as they possibly can because they have needs of their own that they have to go out and address.
“The timing of the clause is also important. A lot of clauses have the end of June or early July as a date for when the clause expires. That’s because they want to give themselves as much time as possible to source a replacement and get their own incomings sorted before the start of a new season.
“In the case of Szoboszlai it is probably a deal that both sides are pretty happy with.”
