Mesut Ozil is treated like a king in north London.
After a brief period of time in which he divided opinion amongst some Gooners (who couldn’t quite appreciate his subtle genius), the German is now the undisputed poster boy of Arsenal fans everywhere.
Indeed many can’t believe that Real Madrid let the mercurial 27-year-old go back in 2013.
He was doing for them back then exactly what he is doing for Arsenal now – setting up a sh*tload of chances for his teammates whilst chipping in with a few goals of his own.
Now details have been revealed about the deal that took Ozil from Madrid to London – and the most intriguing is that there’s a buy-back clause included in the deal.
Apparently Arsenal paid an initial fee of €44m for the playmaker, plus €1m for every season that Arsenal qualified for the Champions League (for up to six years).
Using the exchange rate of the time, that’s pretty much bang on the £42.4m that was widely reported.
But Real did include a buy-back option under clause 4, stipulating that Arsenal must offer the Bernabeu outfit first refusal on the player, should a rival Spanish side make a move for his services.
It would give the Madrid side up to 48 hours to exercise their option, or allow the deal to go through without them.
One suspects that Ozil is going nowhere for now.
