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Man Utd have a buy-back clause for Willy Kambwala.

7 players with a buyback clause in their contract ft. former Man Utd & Chelsea stars…

If you’ve ever played Football Manager, you know all about buyback clauses. They’re great when they work in your favour—when your squad is full of wonderkids who you keep loaning out to gain experience, but they’re getting antsy for first-team experience at a big club.

Conversely, starting a game with a lower-ranked club and having a star player who is clearly too good for you but has a buyback option for his previous club in his contract = PANIC.

Anyway, sorry. Here are seven real-life players with buyback options in their contracts.

Kyle Walker-Peters

The former Tottenham right-back played almost every game for Southampton last season as they won promotion back to the Premier League.

He was one of the standout players in a great Championship campaign for the Saints, and Spurs very sensibly popped a buyback clause in the contract when they sold him.

In terms of right-backs, Spurs have Pedro Porro and Djed Spence, the latter having just returned from his third successive loan spell and seemingly unfancied in Tottenham.

The North Londoners need another right-back, in short, and activating the buyback option for Walker-Peters is something they should seriously consider.

Liam Delap

Football Manager players will be well aware of Delap. The now ex-Man City striker has been a wonderkid for a few years now, and is always a useful early-game signing, or a handy loan signing if you’re starting outside of the Prem.

Having now joined Ipswich for the sum of £20m, we seem set to finally see what Delap can do with a prolonged run of Premier League game time.

City are clearly aware of the youngster’s potential, and have thrown in a buyback clause in case he blossoms into England’s next superstar number 9.

TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the 25 most expensive transfers of all time?

Harry Kane

Speaking of superstar English number 9s, may we present to you Harry Edward Kane. When asked about the sale of their talisman to Bayern Munich last summer, Daniel Levy claimed to have inserted a buyback clause into the transfer contract.

Take that with a pinch of salt, that’s all we’re saying. The details aren’t clear.

Although, Kane himself did remain pretty open regarding his future when sending a goodbye message to the Spurs faithful, so perhaps the clause does exist. Maybe he can come back once he’s won a trophy.

Which would be great if Kane wasn’t cursed.

Willy Kambwala

Kambwala made his senior debut at the back end of last season, playing ten games in all comps for the Red Devils, and looking excellent, to be honest.

You wouldn’t believe he’s a 19-year-old centre-back from the way he plays—assured, calm, physical, technically sound.

Villareal were impressed enough to bring him to La Liga, and United allowed that to happen.

That could prove to be a big mistake from United, but they have at least had the foresight to insert a buyout clause into the contract so that they can bring him back to England for a good price should Kambwala continue to develop at his current rate.


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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the 30 most expensive transfers between Premier League clubs?


Tammy Abraham

All we’re saying is Chelsea need a striker since Nicolas Jackson has been wildly inconsistent and about 95% of the rest of their squad are wingers or number 10s.

According to reports, the Blues could bring Tammy back to West London for £69m.

That doesn’t seem likely as the Englishman missed nine months with injury last season, and will be keen to pick up where he left off at Roma, let alone the fact that the transfer market seems to have taken a bit of a dip recently, and almost £70m seems pretty steep right now.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens should Abraham start banging in goals for the Giallorossi in the first half of 2024-25, though.

Miguel Gutierrez

The Spanish U-21 left-back made just ten senior appearances for Real Madrid before he was sold to Girona. As you’re well are, Girona had a pretty good 2023-24 season, and now their squad is likely to be picked apart by big-club football vultures.

Happily for Los Blancos, they planned for this future, and threw a buyback clause into the young man’s transfer negotiations.

Now, they’ve already got Ferland Mendy, Fran Garcia, and David Alaba if/when he returns from injury, but Guttierez could be a long-term option for Real. One to keep an eye on.

Zidane Iqbal

Plenty of people behind the scenes at Manchester United were excited about the potential of the beautifully named Zidane Iqbal.

The young midfielder was sold to Utrecht in 2023 as the Red Devils didn’t feel they had space to accommodate him in their first-team plans, but they made sure to include a buyback clause just in case.

Iqbal made 18 first team appearances for Utrecht in last season’s Eredivisie and is a fully-fledged Iraq international. It doesn’t seem likely that United will trigger a buyback option anytime soon, but you never know.