What's with La Liga's billion Euro release clauses?
A release clause in football parlance is a previously decided fee that is set into a player's contract. If a buying club matches this fee then the selling club cannot refuse the bid as per the contract. Once the specified amount is paid, it's up to the player to decide whether they want to join the buying club or not.
Borussia Dortmund had inserted a 75 million euro release clause in Erling Haaland's contract, which could be activated this summer, and clubs will be lining up to make that happen.
Although release clauses are very common, they are not compulsory in most places. In Spain, however, each player's contract must have a release clause. This has to do with the player welfare rules of the country and is intended so that clubs cannot force players to stay when they don't want to.
Some such clauses amount to one billion Euros and are part of the contracts of Ferran Torres, Ansu Fati, Pedri, and Karim Benzema. Real Madrid are currently negotiating a new contract with Vinicius Jr, while Barcelona are negotiating with Gavi, Ronald Araujo and Nico Gonzalez. All of these new contracts will almost certainly have a billion Euro release clause.
Real Madrid will offer Vinicius Junior a new contract with a €1 billion release clause 🤑 https://t.co/qMDbUFhvHr
Fans tend to get quite flustered with high-value clauses. They believe that clubs are overrating players by implying that they are worth these huge amounts so early in their careers. But that is not the case.
Firstly, as previously mentioned, these clauses are compulsory, unlike say in the Premier League. This means that at all points there is a genuine chance that any club might lose any player. So to get around this, some clubs insert these ridiculously high-value clauses into contracts.
So why is it not something more reasonable like 300 or 400 million Euros? In today's age of clubs being funded by states with endless pockets and ever rising transfer fees, it is quite envisageable that someone might pay that.
Barca, in fact, have first-hand experience of this. They thought they were safe with Neymar's release clause of 222 million euros but it turned out they weren't. PSG came and paid the amount and suddenly Barca lost a star they were planning their future around. This is exactly what they want to avoid in the future with the likes of Pedri and Fati.
OFFICIAL: Ansu Fati’s new contract has a €1 billion release clause 🚨 https://t.co/FIGrCnL6YQ
Moreover, by inserting these high-value clauses, the clubs send out a message to the players and their agents that they are valued at the club. They want to show that these players are their present and future and they will not sell them for any amount.
Lastly, people who don't understand this always argue that what if the player doesn't realize their potential or becomes injury prone? This doesn't mean that the club and the players are tied to each other forever. Players can obviously be sold at any price under the release clause, it is just a matter of the buying and selling clubs negotiating a fee between them.