If there were any Arsenal fans hoping Roberto Firmino could be lured to the Emirates for a cut-price fee will be sorely disappointed.
Contract clauses appears to be the buzz issue of the transfer gossip columns this week following the latest batch of documents released by the Football Leaks group.
The documents contained an array of oddball clauses supposedly written into the contracts of some of the beautiful game’s biggest stars. Hugo Lloris apparently receives a €4,000 bonus each time he plays a role in a Tottenham Hotspur loss, while Atlético Madrid reportedly earn a cool €250,000 every time Sergio Aguero scores 15 goals for Manchester City. There was also that infamous ‘good behaviour’ clause that Liverpool allegedly inserted into Mario Balotelli’s deal.
The one everyone’s talking about this morning also involve the Reds. It is being reported that when Liverpool snapped up Roberto Firmino from Hoffenheim in 2015, they decided to write a particular clause into his contract that could potentially screw over Arsenal, and only Arsenal. Liverpool slapped a staggering €98 million release clause in Firmino’s deal which can be triggered by any club, any club at all, except for one notable exception – the Gunners.
Why Arsenal, you ask? Well, it would make sense that this would be a direct response to the London outfit’s attempt to slyly poach Luis Suarez from the club back in 2013. Arsenal offered £1 above the Uruguayan striker’s £40 million release clause, which as you can probably tell from the fact that Suarez is now playing for Barcelona, didn’t work out too well for them.
