Question about Spanish soccer league player buy-out clauses

The Game Room
1

AIUI, Spain is relatively unique in that its buy-out clauses don’t allow a team to refuse to sell a player if the buyer meets the price tag of the buyout clause. If someone ponies up the cash, the team must release the player to them.

IOW, when Paris Saint-Germain offered $253 million for Neymar a few years ago, Barcelona (Neymar’s team) couldn’t say no; they had to let Neymar go to PSG.

If this is the case, then couldn’t a super-rich club theoretically buy out all the finest players in La Liga? A (hypothetically ultra-wealthy) PSG could have bought up Ronaldo, Benzema, Messi, Neymar, Suarez, Ramos, Modric, Kroos, Pique and Alba to form a super-team.

Secondary question: Why can’t a Spanish team set its buyout clause super-high, like a trillion euros, to prevent anyone from buying a player like Messi, or is the clause deliberately set low enough that someone might in fact scrounge up the cash to buy?

2
  1. They’re not unique to Spain
  2. Theoretically a team has to earn as much money as they pay out or risk fines and bans from competition.
  3. Teams do set ridiculously high buyout clauses if they don’t want to be forced to sell a player. I think Ansu Fati’s is 500M. Ronaldo’s is 1B. But then the teams lose out on potential windfalls. At the time there was a thought that Barcelona would be better with the cash than with Neymar (turns out to probably not have been the case). Set your buyouts high enough that you’re not upset if another desperate team triggers it.
3

The buyout clauses are negotiated between player and team, they’re not really “set.” The player simply gets the right to negotiate with the offering club if the triggering offer is made to his club.

4

Concerning the establishment of a “super team” by buying all the stars: This is more or less what Chelsea (in the mid Naughties), Man City and PSG and a number of other billionaire-backed teams have done (or at least tried to achieve). There are a number of problems here:

  1. There is no guarantee that it will work in terms of success. Fitting all of the Top-Players you named in the OP into a working and team will be a hard challenge, it is a team sport, after all. Neymar and Messi didn’t really work at Barca
  2. You will be somewhat successful, winning national championships but at the absolute top level, it will be another thing. Look at the Champions League winners from in this millennium: Of the prime examples (Chelsea, Man City and PSG) of money-backed super teams, only Chelsea have won the Champions League in that ear - once!
  3. You need the approval of the player. If they do not want to join, there is no way to force them. And even if you can force them, you won’t get the best of their abilities.
  4. Many of the teams with a longer successful history are also backed by super-rich entities (not only oligarchs, but in so. e cases even countries like Qatar).
5

The clauses are negotiated between the players (and their agents, who are a wicked bunch, google Mino Raiola if you want) and the clubs. If a club wants to keep a player, the clubs interest is to set the clause as high as possible, to deter buyers, they call this blindar (you asked specifically about Spain, but the same is true in other countries too), which means to make bullet proof. But then the player insists in getting a higher salary (and a higher commission for the agent) and gets it. This is the way Messi ended up earning what he earns: he knew Barça wanted to keep him, so after many rounds of new contracts, with higher and higher clauses, he ended up earning so much that Barça could not afford to bullet proof Neymar to the same degree. Messi is earning about 50 million Euros per year after taxes, that means he is costing Barça 100 millions per year. Barça’s total budget is just ≈ ten times that!

Then it is true that the player can be bought for the amount set in the clause, but only if the player wants to go. Neymar wanted to go, it seems he had enough of playing second fiddle to Messi. May not have been a wise move, but his salary is even higher in Paris than it was in Barcelona. Rich boys problems…

Then there is the so called financial fair play rule: A club cannot run unlimited deficits forever and grants from a sponsor, country or oligarch don’t count as income. UEFA can ban a club that does not keep a minimum of equilibrium between expenditure and income from playing the interesting competitions (i.e.: Champions League). Paris Saint Germain could not afford to buy Mbappé after signing up Neymar, so they cheated‡: they took him on loan one year and bought him the next. That was borderline and was investigated by the UEFA bodies (who ruled in favour of PSG, money talks). They got a slap in the wrist: ts, ts, ts, do not do that again! Machester City has been investigated for overspending too and lost in the first instance two years ago, but won on appeal: they were almost banned from European competitions. Bayern München does overspend too in Germany: they buy the best German players over and over again. Thus their dominance in domestic competitions, and sometimes in Europe as well (Last time they won the Campions League: last year). In Germany you are either a supporter or you hate them.

Granted, the financial fair play rule is quite toothless, but it could bite nonetheless one day if UEFA wanted. It is a damocles sword that has been never used to the last consequence, but it could. Some day. (Yeah, I am a fan, and fans are dreamers). So far it has just been there to keep appearances, I know. But now that the rich clubs have so spectacularly belly flopped with the European Super League, UEFA migh show some resolve, as the clubs have overplayed their hands and their bluff has been called. They really shot themselves in the foot with that move.

‡ They all cheat. And bend the rules. And cook the books. And they are all very deep in debt. Covid may be the last nail in many a coffin.