Manchester City have a buy-back clause inserted into the transfer agreement for Douglas Luiz.
The Brazilian midfielder completed his move to Aston Villa in an initial £15million deal yesterday, with another £1million to be earned in add-ons if the 21-year-old proves to be a success.
That ended a frustrating two years for Luiz with the Blues , as he was unable to get a work permit and ended up spending two seasons on loan at sister club Girona.
Luiz is likely to fall foul of the same rule when Villa apply for a permit, but the Midlands club are confident that the appeal process will work in their favour.
The appeal works on a points system, with points available if the transfer fee or wages are suitably high, in a bid to prevent less wealthy clubs being disadvantaged when pursuing foreign players.
Luiz will earn appeal points if his salary, as is likely, is in the top 25 per cent on Villa’s wage structure.
City did not want to sell Luiz – in fact last summer Pep Guardiola expressed his frustration at being unable to give the holding midfielder an opportunity to stake a claim as number two to Fernandinho.
So a buyback clause was inevitable, although neither club is revealing any details about what that entails.
Sources close to Villa claim that it is likely to be heavily stacked in their favour, and on an escalating scale, with talk of it being £25million next summer and £30million the year after.
But that does not fit with City’s recent strategy.
They sold Angelino for £5million last year and bought him back for around £5.35million last month – and it would be no great surprise if the terms of Luiz’s deal are along similar lines.
