With the Premier League being extremely strict with breaches of financial regulations over the last year, and especially with PSR coming into effect, clubs are having to find incredibly clever ways to go about their business while avoiding charges. At the start of the Summer there were some odd deals across the league, but West Ham weren’t involved in any of them.
However, what was a little strange is how Jean-Clair Todibo wasn’t signed on loan just with an obligation or option, rather he was signed with a specific clause that needed to be reached to make it an obligatory purchase.
Our own ExWHUEmployee has stated a number of times how it is extremely easy to reach and how it would take a disaster for it to not be fulfilled.
While it’s not officially completed, Fabrizio Romano has stated that there is absolutely no chance at this point that he doesn’t sign permanently. “The obligation to buy clause (€40m) into Jean-Clair Todibo deal at West Ham from OGC Nice is very easy to reach, almost guaranteed,” he posted on X.
“It will be triggered soon as French centre back can already be considered 100% West Ham player, as always mentioned.”
You can only assume that the clause was done this way in order to avoid a breach of PSR. While this is purely speculation, it could be that if it went down as an obligation to buy it would have been taken into account for this Summer’s finances, whereas there technically is no guarantee that the deal will happen if there is a clause that has to be reached, no matter how easy it is to do so, meaning that it has to be taken into account next season instead.
It’s a smart move by the club and it should hopefully mean they easily avoid any sort of breaches. The only downside is that it means next Summer’s budget will be smaller due to the nature of the deal, but that’s something the recruitment team would have been well aware of so it should not be a massive issue.
