On Sunday, it was revealed in Argentina that there could be some drama on the way as Brighton & Hove Albion try and sign Valentín Barco from Boca Juniors.
A report from Olé stated the left-back had made it clear to his team that he would trigger his release clause if they didn’t accept the $9m + 10% of a future move offer from the Seagulls, which hadn’t gone down well with the Argentine club.
Now, we have a new article, this time from Clarín, who bluntly state it’s very likely that the defender will ‘no longer play’ for Boca, even if the Argentine side ‘will not accept’ the offer from Brighton.
Instead, they would prefer he trigger his $10m release clause, because that means they get the $10m in one go.
Clarín explain that should they accept Brighton’s offer, they would get less money and receive the funds over a period of time.
In fact, they break it down, revealing Boca Juniors would get ‘almost $7m’ from the deal, because 15% of the fee would go to the player, which will be added to 7% of AFIP withholdings, 2% going to Argentine FA, 1.2% of stamp taxes, 0.5% to the syndicate and ‘very probably’ 7% to the agent.
However, if Brighton are forced to trigger the release clause, they would have to pay $10m up front, as well as 3% of the player’s retirement fund, 4% to the Argentine FA and 0.5% to the union.
In short, they would rather $10m in the bank now than wait years to eventually get a potential $15m if Barco is sold for $60m.
It’s believed it would be difficult for Barco himself to trigger his release clause with his and his agent’s money, meaning they need Brighton to do it, which is seen as the ‘most likely’ outcome.
The question then is whether or not the Seagulls are ready to do that, or could eventually offer more than the release clause and still pay over time to entice Boca to sell that way.
As Clarín point out, we’ll ‘see in the next few days’.
