Why don't players at English clubs have buy-out clauses?

Niall

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This seems all the rage in Spain, not sure about other European leagues. It's not something I've ever heard of in England - why?

We could have slapped a £50 buy-out clause on De Gea and laughed all the way to the bank when Real Madrid came knocking for him (I know he hasn't left yet but you get the point).

Is there some legal constraint preventing this in the UK? Whereas in Spain, it's fair game?
 
Niall said:
We could have slapped a £50m buy-out clause on De Gea and laughed all the way to the bank when Real Madrid came knocking for him (I know he hasn't left yet but you get the point).
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Doubt it'd have made much of a difference with DDG really considering he's in the last year of his contract, if he did have that buyout and Madrid offered something like £30m instead off the £50m clause I'd be surprised if we turned it down if he wanted the move.

re: Spain, it's compulsory I think for them.
 
Santos J said:
Doubt it'd have made much of a difference with DDG really considering he's in the last year of his contract, if he did have that buyout and Madrid offered something like £30m instead off the £50m clause I'd be surprised if we turned it down if he wanted the move.

re: Spain, it's compulsory I think for them.
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It would have helped our bargaining position though. Set a high starting point to work down from.

But yeah, the player always has the option to wait out his contract and the club gets nothing.
 
Niall said:
Interesting. Any source on that?
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http://www.theguardian.com/football...oney-cabaye-buy-out-contracts-premeier-league

A buy-out clause, on the other hand, sets a figure for which the player can buy his way out of his current deal with the club. They are mandatory in Spain but are rarely triggered for a variety of reasons: the release figure can be set at a level far beyond market value; an apparent gentleman's agreement between the Spanish clubs not to destabilise each others' players; and considerable tax and logistical complexities. The tax issues arise as the money technically must come from the player, resulting in the "buying club" having to transfer money to the player, who then has to pass it on to the "selling club".
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There are minimum release clauses and buyout clauses, both are different.

Minimum release, is an amount a club has to bid to begin negotiations with the current club holding the contract.

Buyout clause (more common in Europe), is a set price of which the player has to buy himself out of his own contract, but they have to prove that it was the players money and not the buying club, hence why we couldn't pay Ander the money (straight up) to pay for his own buyout clause.

This doesn't happen in EPL mainly because English law is so much more advanced and law favours the ambiguous, so it wouldn't stand up in court, that and tradition, it isn't usual, so you'd have a hard job convincing most players to do it.
 
MyOnlySolskjaer said:
Benteke's been reported to have one around the 30m mark, Fellaini had one which we apparently paid over...
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Ah yeah. We waited until the release clause didn't exists and paid over what we could have got him for. Still though, it wasn't a buy-out clause if I remember rightly, it was a release clause.
 
It's legally mandatory in Spain, English clubs doesn't have them since they're not obliged to.
 
MyOnlySolskjaer said:
Benteke's been reported to have one around the 30m mark, Fellaini had one which we apparently paid over...
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Yeah I wanted to mention that too :lol:

Benteke is on 32.5 m pounds accoring to the media. It seems like it's a kind of secret in the PL. Rumours about Lloris and Sterling turned out to be bs in the end.
 
Eboue said:
Buyout clauses aren't a good thing for the club. They are an incentive for the player.
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True, but why is it mandatory for Spanish clubs?
 
Eboue said:
Buyout clauses aren't a good thing for the club. They are an incentive for the player.
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Also encourages the player not to run down a contract, but gives him an earlier release and the club receive a monetary value, it's not as good as release clauses, but I'd say it works for both club & player unless the player stature has risen greatly since his last "Buyout clause evaluation"
 
AngeloHenriquez said:
Also encourages the player not to run down a contract, but gives him an earlier release and the club receive a monetary value, it's not as good as release clauses, but I'd say it works for both club & player unless the player stature has risen greatly since his last "Buyout clause evaluation"
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Think of it like this: without a buyout clause, a club can demand whatever price they want and refuse to sell if it isn't met. With a buyout clause, a club has to do something it might not want to do. It's as simple as that. Clubs don't want them, players do want them to ensure that they are able to move in certain scenarios.
 
One major issue with the buy-out clause is the belief that this type of clause would be unenforceable in the English courts. In English law, though the courts have allowed parties to pre-agree damages for a breach of contract, they have taken it upon themselves to limit the use of penalty clauses. The English courts have generally held that a clause imposing the obligation on the defaulting party to pay an extravagant sum for the breach of contract is a penalty clause and hence is void and unenforceable. Conversely, a genuine pre-estimate of damage would be an enforceable liquidated damages clause. It must be noted that a pre-estimate of damages does not need to be a correct prediction of the damage that will be caused by a breach; it must simply be a genuine attempt to estimate the amount of damage likely to occur to the innocent party. It is unclear what would constitute a ‘reasonable’ pre-estimated damage calculation for a football contract. The value of a player in footballing terms is usually determined by the market , and so is not quantifiable. In most cases the transfer value of a player is much higher than the value of his contract to the club, so it is difficult to establish what the actual damage to a club is, if a player does not honour the terms of his contract. Most clubs, if they are to agree to include a buy-out clause into the footballer’s playing contract, will demand that they set the value in the clause. Hence, they usually set the value to the perceived market value of the player (or sometimes even higher than this). Because of this, the values usually contained in buy-out clauses are extravagant sums. As a result, a buy-out clause containing the ‘transfer value’ of the player is more akin to a penalty clause than a liquidated damages clause.
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https://lawinfootball.wordpress.com...contracts-a-means-for-greater-player-freedom/
 
It's probably related to Spanish employment law rather than football. There's no way those clubs would include a buy-out clause unless they absolutely have to. It gives more power to the player, hence why so many of the clauses are ridiculously high.
 
Isn't Messi's £195m? Just do it Woody!

EDIT: Actually it's more £182 in todays exchange. More sense to get it done, Woody!
 
Summit said:
True, but why is it mandatory for Spanish clubs?
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Something to do with the players association in Spain, they forced it in to protect players. Most especially 2nd and lower league players(who'd have low buyouts), so if big(or bigger at least) clubs come in for them, they can more easily move.
 
In Spain it's part of the standard LFP (Liga) terms and conditions with their equivalent of the players union. The principle of it is written into the national law for the Liga clubs.

In terms of why, it reflects something that was considered good practice before it became law. It's supposed to protect a player who finds himself trapped by his club and should reflect market value. A version of it appears in the FIFPro model contract as well.

In practice it's standard to set it above normal market value so that it compensates the club for the hassle factor of being forced to release a player at the wrong moment. As such it's part of normal contract negotiations and some players have clauses that rise as they play more games or whatever, whereas others have clauses that go down over the course of the contract. Some clauses are set with PR only in mind.
 
The Clausula de Rescision system has existed in La Liga for a while now. But it gained more traction after the Webster and Bosman rulings in the 1990s. Basically under common Human Rights standards, players have equal freedom of movement - for better living status, working conditions and so forth within the boundaries of the Union. And after the Andy Webster case, FIFA's Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players added Article 17 which states that any player who signed a contract before the age of 28 can buy himself out of the contract three years after the deal was signed, which is shortened to two years if the player is 28 or over. This kind of parlays into the current clause system wherein the players can buy out the remainder of their contract and the existing deal in unilaterally terminated, or the player qualifies for certain terms in the contract literature.

All this created a legal mess and potential player strikes for European clubs, necessitating a uniform predetermined system. So the Clausula is essentially a sort of middle ground between the club and player unions, a sum of money which protects both the employer (they can recoup their investment even if it doesn't necessarily reflect current market value - could be argued Laporte's clause is way above his actual value, are safeguarded against derisory bids - Javi to Bayern) and the employee's (a player at a smaller club wants to play for a bigger club - not just Spain, but in the Bundesliga too - like Marco Reus, wants a hassle-free escape - Gotze, wants to play in Europe, wants more first team football - Thiago) monetary and labor interests.

As for Barcelona and Real having astronomical buyout clauses, it's a) mostly done as a formality and rarely if ever are the clauses actually paid - eg. Fabregas had a clause of €200 million, Alexis Sanchez had €100 million or b) a precedent has been set because of the Figo transfer where Perez and Madrid simply activated his Clausula de Rescision, and because the player agreed personal terms, Barcelona had no say in the matter as the selling club. Now those clubs want to absolutely ensure their best player aren't poached, hence ludicrous clauses, apart from cases like Thiago where he didn't play enough first team football which in turn triggered a lower release clause stated in his contract (€90 million reduced to ~€20 million).

Dunno why English clubs don't always employ a similar approach though. Maybe the club and player unions can't reach an agreement on a larger league-wide scale, or maybe there's a disparity in terms of valuation, or maybe they just want to wing it ? Though even apart from Suarez and Fellaini, certain individual players have release clauses inserted into their contracts in England (generally at smaller clubs) which have been agreed upon by the selling club and the representatives of the player at the time of signing/ renegotiation :
Joe Allen : http://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/jul/25/swansea-liverpool-joe-allen
Demba Ba : http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/20890803
AFAIK Anelka had a clause in his Arsenal contract when he wanted to sign for Real Madrid ?

This apart from players above 28 free to buy out the remainder of their own contract under the Webster Ruling (IIRC Cabaye threatened to buy out his contract at Newcastle).
 
I suspect release/buyout clauses are more common in English football than we know. Phil Jones had one at Blackburn, I remember them complaining that we shouldn't have known about it. I also think the arrival of foreign players/agents coming from countries where clauses are standard means more negotiations like to include them.

Whether we've got any players with clauses in their contracts I don't know. When it looked like we were in the frame to buy Thiago a couple of years back I remember one of the sticking points appeared to be that he wanted a release clause, just in case he found himself stuck on the bench.
 
Invictus said:
Dunno why English clubs don't always employ a similar approach though.
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Partly because of the law. It's likely that an English court would consider a Spanish style payout clause as a de facto penalty clause (because the amount specified in such clauses is not proportional to the actual damage suffered by the club if a player leaves before his contract expires) – and the latter, penalty clauses, are frowned upon and considered undesirable.

So, it's deemed risky, in short. Clubs don't want any legal hassle.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Partly because of the law. It's likely that an English court would consider a Spanish style payout clause as a de facto penalty clause (because the amount specified in such clauses is not proportional to the actual damage suffered by the club if a player leaves before his contract expires) – and the latter, penalty clauses, are frowned upon and considered undesirable.

So, it's deemed risky, in short. Clubs don't want any legal hassle.
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Yep, that seems plausible. Could prove to be a potential legal and PR landmine.
 
shabadu84 said:
Didn't Suarez have one with Liverpool?
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And it wasn't enforceable unless we took it to CAS or something. I don't think we were prepared to take Liverpool to court over it and didn't believe the player would risk potentially being benched until Nov/Dec until it was decided.

In Spain if a club doesn't cooperate I believe (not sure of the exact details) you can pay the release clause to the Spanish FA who will then release the player from his contract and transfer the money to the club in question. I think that was how Bayern released Javi Martinez from his contract at Bilbao. I think (but not sure) that was how R.Madrid took Figo from Barca as well.
 
JazzG said:
And it wasn't enforceable unless we took it to CAS or something. I don't think we were prepared to take Liverpool to court over it and didn't believe the player would risk potentially being benched until Nov/Dec until it was decided.

In Spain if a club doesn't cooperate I believe (not sure of the exact details) you can pay the release clause to the Spanish FA who will then release the player from his contract and transfer the money to the club in question. I think that was how Bayern released Javi Martinez from his contract at Bilbao. I think (but not sure) that was how R.Madrid took Figo from Barca as well.
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That's more or less right. Normally Liga clubs when offered the clause figure go ahead with a normal transfer, because the formal procedure is riskier for both clubs. In particular if either club owes money to the tax office the tax man can step in as "preferred creditors" and get the money from the LFP who act as the intermediaries.

If the forced procedure is used as it was by Bayern in the Martinez case, and as we think it was by United when we bought Herrera then you need to hire a very good law firm to make sure there are no slip-ups. If a club really did give a player the money to buy out his contract, you potentially double your cost - because he might have to pay income tax on it. So it's not taken lightly.
 
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