Brighton and Hove Albion may find themselves needing to carefully manager new signing Valentin Barco and his agents in future as the dust settles on his move and South American media don’t paint him in a good light.
Infobae cover the player today after Brighton moved to secure his signature this month following six months of attempts to get the young defender.
They explain that El Colo will sign for the Seagulls for five years in a deal worth $10m, the value of the termination clause in his contract.
Brighton elected to pay that clause after Boca Juniors had rejected a bid worth $10.5m that would have seen them pay in instalments and leave a percentage of the player’s rights with the Argentine side.
Boca preferred that Barco left for that clause because the deal offered by Brighton would have been reduced by 25% once various taxes had been deducted, leaving them with $7,695,500m net.
They’ll instead receive $9.5m thanks to his clause being activated and receive that figure in full rather than in two instalments.
Frankly they’re happy to finalise the matter, with the relationship between Barco and the club’s board having become ‘somewhat stormy’ since last summer, when Brighton and Manchester City both showed an interest.
Infobae say their relationship reached ‘boiling point’ in 2022 and continued into last year, when his agent again opened talks over a renewal and the board were forced to ‘reluctantly’ accept his demands.
That led to the current situation, as he insisted his clause not be raised beyond $10m, a figure Boca clearly think is below market value for a player who is so highly rated.
Brighton won’t mind, of course, but it seems they may want to keep an eye on the player and his agent moving forwards, with neither seemingly too concerned about fighting their own corner and getting what they want when the time comes, as Boca learned.
