Often when clubs sign players they put fanciful bonus clauses in the deal so the selling club can present a higher headline figure for the transfer.
Those clauses can be anything from Premier League, or equivalent, survival to winning the Ballon d’Or, and generally they tend to be weighted towards ambitious targets.
When Aston Villa signed Pau Torres from Villarreal last summer, they did so partly thanks to such bonus clauses.
El Periódico Mediterráneo, local to the Spanish club and almost certainly the best source of information on them, reports Aston Villa agreed to pay €33m for Pau Torres, plus a further €5m in potential bonus payments.
Villarreal will not have expected the second part as a likely outcome so quickly, and the newspaper states they’ll be happy with their ‘five million bonus’. The same will go for Aston Villa, who will be more than content with their purchase, even if it’s now cost them a chunk more.
