Mohamed Salah’s transfer shows the value of Chelsea’s sell-on clauses (£2.7 million in his case)

Chelsea will make more on Mohamed Salah’s transfer from AS Roma to Liverpool than they did when they sold him to Roma. The episode shows why all Chelsea transfers should include a sell-on clause.

While Mohamed Salah barely earned a look-in from the manager who wanted him at Chelsea, Liverpool deem him worthy of a club-record transfer fee. When the Reds pay £39 million to bring Salah back to the Premier League, Chelsea will receive £2.7 million – over twice the profit they made on his sale.

Chelsea bought Mohamed Salah for £11 million from FC Basel. Two years, two loans and two Chelsea goals later, they sold him to AS Roma for £12 million. His financial return for the club was as minimally noteworthy as what he accomplished on the pitch, given how little playing time he received.

After 15 goals and 11 assist in his first season as a full member of AS Roma, his market value and transfer fee have skyrocketed. Fortunately, Chelsea included a sell-on clause in Salah’s transfer to Roma. The clause held that Chelsea would receive 10% of Roma’s profit in the case of an eventual sale, according to The Times.

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Call it a contingency or a hedge. Say that Chelsea had shrewd foresight or they just threw something against the wall to see what would stick. Muse about whether Chelsea had second thoughts over Salah’s transfer.

Whatever rationale and conclusion you come to, Chelsea conducted some right smart business with that sell-on clause.

Mohamed Salah shows the importance of the sell-on clause for players that underperformed or had little opportunity to excel at Chelsea. Young players and veteran loanees are a particular case of the latter. Few players do their best when they are at a different loan club each season. They may only prove that they are not Chelsea-calibre. But that does not mean they cannot become very valuable somewhere else.

Huddersfield Town are reportedly considering an £8 million bid for Isaiah Brown. Brown is the sort of player for whom sell-on clauses should be a no-brainer around Stamford Bridge. Chelsea could not expect to get much more than Huddersfield’s £8 million. In a few years, though, he could easily be worth at least twice that amount. A 10% profit clause could add another million to Chelsea’s return on his early years with the club.

Omitting a sell-on clause leaves money on the table. Chelsea have at times embarassed themselves by not including the sell-on clause and its cousin, the buy-back clause (see: Lukaku, R).

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Chelsea will almost always have the upper hand in bargaining for players like Salah and Brown. Hopefully the additional £2.7 million from Mohamed Salah removes any doubt that insisting on a sell-on clause is worth the added negotiation.