Leeds United’s current owners have vowed to ensure the same catastrophe won’t befall the club if they are relegated, as it did last time with the loan clauses that were uncovered and promptly triggered.
Leeds’ return to the Premier League has already brought a steep learning curve for the 49ers’ internally-promoted recruitment structure, but their two years of experience since a full takeover has seen them look to rectify the blunders made by the previous regime.
There’s no guarantee that Leeds will stick the landing despite looking to operate in a different manner to Andrea Radrizzani and co, but past mistakes won’t be repeated.
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Leeds United refuse relegation loan clauses, but some players do hold release clauses
As Radrizzani left out the back door in the summer of 2023 upon a shameful relegation, undoing a lot of the hard work that Marcelo Bielsa achieved to get United into such a strong position, the 49ers were left with an opened can of worms.
That was the loan clauses present in a large portion of the first team squad, seeing seven senior players leave for top flight clubs on loan, while Tyler Adams and Rodrigo departed for permanent fees, the Spaniard leaving to more positive reaction from fans than any of the others.
Jack Harrison is having to graft hard to repair his broken Leeds United relationships. (Action Images via Reuters/Craig Brough)
Jack Harrison and Rasmus Kristensen were able to extend their time away from Leeds by a further year after the playoff final defeat, indicating that both could remain on loan indefinitely while United were in the EFL, unsurprisingly leading to Harrison’s hostile reception against Everton on matchday one.
Now, with survival an uncertainty, the worry is that Leeds will find themselves in a similar quagmire of release clauses if they drop back out of the top flight, to which managing director Robbie Evans provided clarity this week.
“Every player’s contract is different. I can say, categorically, we do not have any relegation loan clauses, which I found to be by far the most catastrophic because you lose the player for nothing,” Evans told the press this week, per The Athletic.
Evans did, however, reveal that some of the squad (identities of course not disclosed) do have release clauses in their contracts in the event of relegation.
“Some players have relegation sale clauses,” Evans continued. “All of them are at a price at or above, normally well above, the price we paid for them. And many of them don’t.
“So it’s a person to person basis, based on their leverage, but I’m pretty confident, to a man, any player that comes down, either we will be in control of their sale or not, or, if they’re sold, I’m comfortable with the return they’ll have generated to make it worth our while to have them leave.”
Relegation clauses are standard practice, and hopefully Leeds United have covered themselves here
It’s no shock that Leeds have included release clauses in some players’ contracts, as there are players that will simply not be playing Championship football if we do go down.
That being said, the club have rightly covered themselves in that eventuality and will be making profit on their sales (hopefully) to cushion the blow of relegation.
The signings made this summer are largely solid, the worry for Evans and co is that they missed out on some very important ones.
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