Official | Bayer Leverkusen sell Hull City transfer ban subject Gustavo Puerta to Santander | OneFootball

Bayer Leverkusen confirmed the permanent sale of Colombian midfielder Gustavo Puerta on transfer deadline day. The news received relatively minor attention on what proved an extremely hectic Monday for the Bundesliga outfit. Puerta’s €3.5m move to Racing de Santander in the Spanish Segunda still constitutes the end of an interesting chapter for the heavily capped Colombia U20 international.

Puerta recently returned from a successful loan stint with Hull City in the EFL Championship. The Tigers thought that they had purchased the 22-year-old permanently via a performance-related automatic purchase clause embedded in the loan deal, but were forced to return the player to his German parent club due to a retroactive EFL-imposed transfer ban.

The manner in which Puerta was able to raise his estimated market value whilst working in Hull enabled Leverkusen to obtain €1m more for Puerta than they paid to acquire him in 2022. Puerta has been called up to the Colombian senior men’s national team five times thus far, but has yet to earn his first cap.

GGFN | Peter Weis