Football.London’s West Ham correspondent Sam Inkersole has suggested that the club could stand to double their money if they were to sign Real Madrid midfielder Dani Ceballos this summer.
The 22-year-old Real Madrid has reportedly been deemed surplus to requirements by manager Zinedine Zidane, and has been linked with a move to the London Stadium, according to the Express.
But writing in a piece for Football.London, Inkersole argues that the Spanish giants’ propensity for inserting release clauses into deals for players departing the club means that the Hammers could stand to make a profit further down the line.
Inkersole highlights the example of Mariano Diaz, who was sold to Lyon in June 2017 and re-signed from the French side for a fee close to triple to amount paid to Madrid in the first place.
OPINION
Inkersole could be on to something here, but his analysis only really tells half the story. There are a lot of ifs and buts in this whole thing, but let’s assume for a moment that West Ham do manage to sign Ceballos this summer, and that Madrid do put in a buy-back clause. The only reason that they would want to activate that clause would be if Ceballos had been playing out of his skin for the Hammers. Say for instance he came to England and set the league on fire, then sure, Real might exercise their right to take him back, probably handing West Ham a decent pay packet in the process. But if Ceballos was playing well enough to justify a move to Real Madrid, would the Hammers want to lose him so readily? A buy-back clause essentially makes the selling club powerless to the whims of the buying side, and that can’t be a good thing.
