Tino Livramento’s wild sell-on fee might put Newcastle off deal with Southampton

Securing Tino Livramento’s transfer won’t be a walk in the park for Newcastle, as Chelsea has a substantial sell-on fee attached to any potential deal, Jacob Whitehead and Jacob Tanswell of The Athletic ($) reported on Tuesday.

Southampton aims to make a significant profit, and Brighton & Hove Albion remain in the mix too with a little percentage going their way on top of everything, revealed the Jacobses in their report.

Several Premier League clubs, including Arsenal, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Everton, and Brighton, have expressed their interest in Livramento, though some of them might have been put off slightly because of the increasingly stupid sell-on fees and the amounts of teams baked into them that would get a slice of the final payment made to the Saint, whatever that is. Jacobs & Jacobs also named German side RB Leipzig and Monaco from France as two clubs monitoring Livramento from outside the British Islands.

Chelsea’s sell-on clause pertains to Southampton’s profit from Livramento’s sale. Since Southampton acquired him for £4m, that amount is exempt from the clause and only fees above that figure would report some money to Chelsea as they’d fall into the profit side of things.

The profit share with Chelsea is on a sliding scale and percentage-based, meaning the larger the fee agreed upon, the bigger Chelsea’s slice of the profit. Conversely, Southampton’s percentage decreases with a higher fee.

Southampton is seeking a flat gain of at least £25m, which means they’d be valuing the overall operation to sell Livramento at some £50m from the club acquiring him.

When it comes to your Magpies, it’s believed Newcastle has reportedly made a counter-offer of approximately £23m, per J&J, which falls just below half of Southampton’s asking price. Just for context, if Southampton were to accept this bid, they would receive around £15m, still a bit short of their expectations. J&J reported that NUFC will not exceed a payment of £30m for Livramento as an absolute maximum.

Chelsea also holds a buy-back clause attached to Livramento’s deal with Southampton that will become active this summer. The reported (or perhaps just rumored, as it’s not quite clear) figure for activating the buy-back clause has been quoted at £50m.

This, of course, changes everything and makes you think twice about overpaying for a long-time injured player that, albeit extremely young and with all of his career still in front of him, might end up not fulfilling his potential, let alone returning value for the money Newcastle would need to pay to reach the expectations and demands coming from the Saints.