A couple years ago, I posted about Barcelona and its current strategic flaw. Essentially, the argument was Barcelona moved away from its strategy to develop players through La Masia and supplement that roster. Instead, under the financially disastrous presidency of Bartomeu, Barcelona was selling or releasing talented youth players for practically nothing while going out and purchasing name-brand players, paying huge transfer fees and wages to bring these other talents in. Barcelona spent hundreds of millions of dollars on names like Dembele, Griezmann, Pjanic, Umtiti, Coutinho, and Lenglet while talented young players left for minimal fees. This spending moved the club away from the ‘Develop through La Masia’ identity, and the over-spending led the club to the brink of financial ruin.
Barcelona now has some talented young players getting first-team minutes, players like Lamine Yamal, Marc Guiu, Gavi, Marc Casado, Alejandro Balde, and Fermin Lopez. The Blaugrana have also already supplemented these ranks with Pedri, the young midfielder from the Canary Islands, and Vitor Roque, the Brazilian wonderkid. However, Barcelona has implemented a new strategy for some youth players, one that we will call the Buyback Strategy. It is too early to judge whether this strategy will be effective or pay dividends for Barcelona, but it is not to early to describe the strategy, including the complex world of loans, transfer clauses, and sell-on percentages.
International Loans
The fundamentals of the buyback strategy are based on the loan system used in international soccer. Teams loan out players, or allow players to play for another team, for a period of time. This period of time is traditionally a season long loan, or until the end of the season if it is a winter transfer window loan, but the period of time is set in the terms of the loan contract.
There are essentially three types of loan contracts: loan, loan with option to buy, and loan with purchase obligation. A standard loan allows a player to play for another team for the prescribed period of time without including language regarding the potential purchase of the loaned player during or at the end of the loan period. A loan with the option to buy allows a player to be loaned to a team for a season, with the potential for the team to purchase the player for a set price prescribed in the loan contract.
There are two types of loans with purchase obligations: a mandatory obligation and a conditional obligation. A loan with a mandatory obligation means the player loaned to a team will be purchased by that team for a specified transfer fee on an enumerated date. A loan with a conditional obligation means that the team where the player is on loan will be required to purchase the loaned player for a specified price if certain conditions are met. For example, the loan contract may specify the player must be purchased if the player makes 20 appearances for the team over the course of the loan. If the player makes 20 appearances, then the team is required to pay the agreed upon transfer fee to the player’s parent club. However, if the player on makes 19 appearances during the course of the loan, the team where the player was loaned is under no obligation to pay the player’s parent club the specified transfer fee or complete the transfer.
Both loans with options to buy and loans with obligations to purchase, like any other transfer move, can contain “buyback” clauses. The means that the player is purchased by another club, but the original club retains the right to re-purchase that same player for a specified fee. For example, a play may be transfer from Club A to Club B for €5 million, but Club A retains a buyback option to re-purchase the player from Club B for €8 million if the player is re-purchased within two seasons. Both types of loans also can include rights to future transfer fees. For examples, Club A transfers Player to Club B for €5 million and 20% of any profits Club B may receive from the future transfer of Player. Club B then sells Player to Club C for €10 million. Club A is legally entitled to €2 million (20% of the fee) from Player’s transfer to Club C.
What is the Buyback Strategy?
Barcelona’s buyback strategy for youth players is as follows: Barcelona has talented youth players in La Masia who are not yet ready to play for the Barcelona first team. Barcelona, through either a transfer, a loan with an option to buy or a loan with an obligation to buy, allows these young players to leave the club and play significant minutes at other clubs, accelerating the development of these players. Each youth transfer or loan includes a buyback clause, allowing Barcelona to re-purchase the player for a specified price. Additionally, Barcelona has inserted the right to future transfer fees in these contracts. This way, if Barcelona decides to re-purchase the player and holds a 50% right to future transfers, Barcelona, functionally, only needs to pay 50% of the buyback fee, since Barcelona would receive the other 50% of profits from any transfer.
Concrete examples may help clarify how these strategy works, and Barcelona has graciously provided us with three real world examples: Ez Abde, Chadi Riad, and Nico Gonzalez.
Abdessamad Ezzalzouli, also known as Ez Abde, moved to Barcelona B from Hercules in 2021. After oscillating between Barcelona B and Barcelona’s first team, Ez Abde was loaned to Osasuna for the 2022-2023 season in order to get more regular minutes. The 22-year-old impressed on loan, but Barcelona still decided he was not going to receive the first team minutes the winger needed to develop. So, in the summer 2023 transfer window, Ez Abde was sold to Real Betis for €7.5 million. The sale included a €20 million buyback option for Barcelona, as well as 50% of any future transfer fee. Barcelona made €7.5 million from the sale of Ez Abde, could buy the player back for €10 million (50% of €20 million), and profits from any future sale of the player if they choose to not exercise the buyback clause.
Like Ez Abde, Chadi Riad bounced between Barcelona B and the Barcelona first team. In order to get more regular first team minutes, Barcelona loaned the 20-year-old to Real Betis during the summer 2023 transfer window. The season-long loan included an option for Real Betis to purchase the young center-back for €3.5 million. The deal also contained a buyback option for Barcelona. Should Real Betis exercise the option to purchase, Barcelona could buy Riad back for €7 million. This appears to be the case, as reports indicate that Real Betis intend to exercise the option to purchase for €3.5 million and Barcelona, who have been impressed by Riad’s play at Real Betis, plan to exercise the buyback clause and pay Real Betis €7 million to have Riad back at Camp Nou.
The final example is Nico Gonzalez. The Galician midfielder came up through La Masia and broke into the Barcelona first team; however, the 22-year-old was not get the regular minutes he needed to develop. After a loan spell with Valencia during the 2022-2023 season, Nico was sold during the 2023 summer transfer window to FC Porto for €8.5 million. As part of the transfer agreement, Barcelona inserted a €30 million buyback clause and would receive 40% of a future transfer fee.
How often Barcelona will chose to exercise the buyback clauses remains to be seen, but there is clearly a new development and transfer strategy at Camp Nou: sell young players for low transfer fees with large future transfer fee percentages so young players can get regular minutes, and exercise the buyback clauses when recently-sold young players prove worthy of regular first team minutes with the Blaugrana.
Big Five FC 