Liverpool will have to pay Southampton a portion of Sadio Mane’s transfer fee if he’s sold at a profit this summer.
That’s according to The Athletic. They claim that Saints inserted a sell-on clause of ’15 to 20 per cent’ of any fee over the £34m Liverpool paid for him.
Should Liverpool’s asking price of £42.5m be met, Southampton will reportedly be due around £1.7m.
However, if Mane is eventually sold for under his original price, Liverpool won’t have to pay anything.
How times change
In a way, Southampton’s insistence at inserting a sell-on clause for Mane shows just how far Liverpool have come.
It was 2016 when the then 24-year-old joined Liverpool. He was the first big signing of the Jurgen Klopp era and The Reds had just finished eighth in the Premier League table.
Perhaps the expectation from Southampton had been that he would flourish at Liverpool, then move on to a ‘bigger’ club.
Instead, Mane helped return Liverpool to being one of the biggest and best clubs the continent has to offer.
Now, the Senegal international apparently wants to try a new challenge. That’s fair enough, but a transfer to any club across Europe is now a lateral, not an upwards move.
Still, it was savvy business as ever from Southampton. It also gives a little insight into why Liverpool are seemingly keen to get as much money as they can for their wantaway forward.
Whether Southampton get paid will depend on just how much Bayern Munich want Mane. Their valuation of the player is reportedly still below Liverpool’s.
If an agreement can’t be reached, maybe nobody will end up with any money at all. It’s still not out of the question that the player who Alan Shearer recently called ‘phenomenal’ via premierleague.com stays at Anfield and leaves on a free next season.