Barcelona defenders Sergi Roberto and Gerard Pique both have bigger contractual buyout clauses than the club’s two record buys, Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele.
Roberto and Pique penned new extensions this week – keeping the defenders at the Camp Nou until least 2022 – with the Catalan club revealing €500m clauses were included in the fresh terms for each.
While these clauses are naturally inflated tenfold in Spanish football with it being all but impossible for any club to meet astronomical valuations, it’s intriguing that both Coutinho and Dembele weren’t rated as highly by Blaugrana.
Coutinho, who became the world’s second most expensive player ever when he moved from Liverpool for €145m during the January window, has a €400m release agreement stipulated in his contract – €100m less than the two defenders.
Meanwhile, Dembele, who Coutinho pipped to second spot in the transfer charts, is reported to have a value between €380-400m following his €127m summer switch from Borussia Dortmund.
Of course, there’s one man who we haven’t mentioned yet that tops the list for Barca – Lionel Messi.
The Argentine legend, who penned new lucrative terms with the Catalan giants in November, has a mega release clause – in the region of €700m – which dwarfs any other player at the club and is only bettered by the €1bn releases clauses for Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benezema at Real Madrid.
Barca’s movement to tie down their most valuable assets to big-money contracts perhaps goes to show the scale of the rebuilding and restructuring job going on under boss Ernesto Valverde and club president Josep Maria Bartomeu.
So far, the financial outlay off the pitch has been met with success on it this season.
