Riccardo Calafiori and the curious case of the sell-on, sell-on clause which might force change | OneFootball

Riccardo Calafiori has been linked with a move from Arsenal to Real Madrid. Were it to happen, it would be the fourth permanent transfer of his career. But there is still an ongoing dispute about the first, which could open up a can of worms that’ll make most clubs think twice about the fine print of their future deals.

Let’s start from the beginning.

August 2022: Calafiori is ready to leave his boyhood club Roma on a permanent basis after spending the second half of the previous season on loan with Genoa. His destination this time will take him out of Italy.

Swiss Super League side Basel are the buyers. This is long before anyone had an inkling of Calafiori having a future at the elite level. He had been a big prospect in the Roma academy, but his career was nearly over before it had begun when he suffered a serious knee injury at the age of 16. The fact he was able to bounce back and eventually make 18 first-team appearances for Roma was a success in itself.

But he reached the end of the road in Italy and was faced with having to rebuild again.

Basel paid Roma a modest €2.5m for Calafiori, with the Italians retaining a 40% sell-on clause. Remember that bit later.

Calafiori’s time with Basel turns out to be productive. A year and a day later, he earns a return to Italy, signing for Bologna at a cost of €4m. Basel arrange a 50% sell-on clause.

It’s at Bologna that Calafiori explodes. Remodelled as a centre-back and named in the Serie A Team of the Year, his value skyrockets.

That’s when Arsenal come forward, paying €40m plus €5m in add-ons and agreeing to another sell-on clause.

But the move was almost held up due to a dispute between his first two clubs, Roma and Basel. And a resolution to that dispute is only just around the corner, two years on.

In a nutshell, Roma’s argument has been that the extra windfall Basel received with their sell-on clause for Calafiori should filter back into their own.

Basel didn’t just make €4m from selling Calafiori. They earned another €22.5m on top with their 50% sell-on clause.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that 40% of €26.5m is greater than 40% of €4m.

Basel’s counter-argument has been that the sell-on clause should only have applied to his direct move away from them.

The case has been heard in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and is now expected to lead to Roma receiving a settlement fee in the region of €6m.

That might not sound like much for a club of their fame, but they’ve been locked in a Financial Fair Play settlement agreement with UEFA for the past four years and it could be a timely boost towards them coming out of it this summer.

In the broader scheme, it could set a precedent for how sell-on clauses are structured. Clubs are going to be careful going forward, whether they’re the Roma or the Basel in their situation, not wanting to rule themselves out of future windfalls and being more meticulous with the small print of their agreements.

This isn’t the first case of its kind. Jorgen Strand Larsen’s move from Wolves to Crystal Palace in January, for example, is believed to have helped his first club, Sarpsborg, raise some extra money thanks to a sell-on clause they’d set up when moving him on to Groningen back in 2020.

But Calafiori’s is an extreme case of a player whose value has grown exponentially in a short space of time.