It’s never been a secret that Portuguese clubs are the masters of the European transfer market, with their traditions of buying cheap players and then selling for many times more.
Islam Slimani is a big example of that. Signed by Sporting from CR Belouizdad in a €300k deal in 2013, he was later bought by Leicester City for €30m three years later.
And it’s about the Algerian striker that A Bola has a story today, as they show how the money paid by Leicester City is helping Sporting to afford Bas Dost, who was signed to replace Slimani.
The figures of the transfers are: Slimani was sold for €30m, with appearance bonuses of up to €3.5m, and scoring bonuses of €1.5m.
From all these bonuses, the player has reached one of them, which is the mark of 30 appearances for Leicester City. That means the Foxes have paid €1m extra so far.
On the other hand, Bas Dost was signed for only €10m, with Sporting having to pay another €2m in case he reaches some goals. From these goals, half of them were paid. That’s €500k for his 30 appearances for the club, and another €500k for Champions League qualification.
In other words, Sporting took the €1m from Slimani’s bonuses and paid for Bas Dost’s. The difference is that the Dutch striker is having a much bigger impact in Portugal than Slimani is having in the Premier League.
The data brought by A Bola shows that in 37 games, Slimani played for 1771 minutes and scored only 10 goals. That’s not even close to Dost, who made 53 appearances, and scored 41 goals in 4423 minutes.
So once again Sporting are showing they can replace their players spending very little, sometimes with even better options.
And in case a Premier League club goes for Bas Dost next summer, we can only imagine how much the Lions will demand for him.