Real Madrid: Comparing players sold with buy-back clauses to traditional loanees

Before we get started, I would like to clarify a doubt some of you might be having. Maybe you’re wondering why I used a photo of Takefusa Kubo and Dani Carvajal for this article. These two players represent both the categories we’re talking about.

Kubo has served four different traditional loan spells in the last three years, while Dani Carvajal, who is a club legend now, was sold with a buy-back clause to Bayer Leverkusen in 2012, and was bought back from the German club a year later.

Sending a player on a traditional loan or selling him with a buyback clause, are the two options a club considers when they think that a player should move away from Real Madrid. We have seen a lot of players being sent to another club, through one of these options.

What is the actual difference between these two options?

Everyone knows the actual difference between these two options, but it’s worth talking about the difference in situations and thought processes while choosing one option out of the two.

The option of a traditional loan is chosen mostly when the club trusts a player and considers him as an important part of the future, aims for the player’s development and expects him to gain experience by playing regularly at another club. A traditional loan is in the interest of both the club and the player and in these situations, we usually see players go on a dry loan, without any buyout options.

When the club doesn’t rate a player that highly and is okay with the probability of another club signing the player on a permanent basis during or after the loan, they insert buy-out clauses in the loan deal. These buyout clauses can also be included on the insistence of the loanee club. And sometimes obligatory buy options can be included in the deal when the club wants to get rid of the player, as we can currently observe in the case of Luka Jovic’s possible loan deal with Fiorentina.

When the player wants to move away and even the club is okay with selling the player, the player is sold. But, if the club believes that they might want to bring the player back in case he excels and performs at a level that convinces the club, they include a buy-back clause in their deal. These clauses are included only after an agreement with all the parties concerned, and these buy-back clauses are usually set at a price higher than the transfer fee of the sale.

These deals usually prove to be beneficial for the selling clubs, as they receive more money than the amount they can receive from a loan deal, which helps the club in the short term future. Clubs benefitted by using this option when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak. And in these cases, the clubs are relieved from the additional financial burden of paying a portion of the player’s wages during a loan.

Another kind of sale that is somewhat similar to this case, is the scenario of selling a player by retaining a part of his rights. In such situations, the buy-back clause can be viewed as the value of the portion of rights held by the buying club. And in case of a future sale to another club, the parent club receives a part of the transfer fee (% of rights x transfer fee). An example of this case is Fran Garcia, a reported transfer target for Real Madrid, who was sold to Rayo Vallecano last year, with 50% of his rights being retained by the club. Usually, a lot of Castilla players are sold using this option.

The success rate of players taking any of these options

Let us take a look at a statistical comparison of both these cases, considering all the players who have been loaned or sold with a buyback option in the last 12 years.

Loan deals

The number of loan spells in the last 12 years: 71

Players loaned immediately after one spell: 25 (Royston Drenthe, Nuri Sahin, Denis Cheryshev, Jesus Vallejo x 3, Lucas Silva, Diego Llorente, Burgui, Martin Odegaard x 2, Andriy Lunin x 2, Raul De Tomas x 3, Borja Mayoral x 3, Takefusa Kubo x 3, Jorge De Frutos, Dani Ceballos, Brahim Diaz)

Players purchased by loanee club after the loan term: 9 (Pedro Leon, Sergio Canales, Sahin, Casemiro, Lucas Vazquez, Philippe Lienhart, Mateo Kovacic, Javi Sanchez, Martin Odegaard)

Players purchased by another club after the loan term: 17 (Drenthe, Gago, Cheryshev, Fabio Coentrao, Alvaro Medran, Diego Llorente, Burgui, Theo Hernandez, Achraf Hakimi, Oscar Rodriguez, De Tomas, Luca Zidane, Lucas Silva, Jorge De Frutos, Sergio Reguilon, Dani Gomez, Alberto Soro)

Players whose futures are yet to be decided: 5 (Brahim Diaz, Takefusa Kubo, Alvaro Odriozola, Borja Mayoral, Reinier Jesus)

Players who got a first-team spot after returning from loan: 15 (Denis Cheryshev, Fabio Coentrao, Marco Asensio, Jesus Vallejo x 2, Marcos Llorente, Borja Mayoral, Fede Valverde, Martin Odegaard, James Rodriguez, Alvaro Odriozola, Gareth Bale, Andriy Lunin, Dani Ceballos, Luka Jovic)

Percentage of loanees who claimed a first-team spot after their loan spell = 15 out of 66 -> 22.72% (5 players whose futures are yet to be decided aren’t considered)

Observations:

• Out of the 15 players who returned to the first team after a spell, 3 players (Coentrao, Bale, James) weren’t loaned for development or gaining experience in the first place. It was more of a temporary move away from the club, and practically there are only 12 successful loan spells. These three players didn’t have a prominent role after returning to the club.
• In the case of the 9 players who were signed by the club that took them on loan, most of them were signed with the buying club activating the buy-out clauses in the deal.
• Out of all the returning loanees, only Fede Valverde and Marco Asensio have been able to get prominent minutes as a starter at Real Madrid. The rest have been limited to backup roles.
• Martin Odegaard returned to the club in the 2021 summer but left the club on loan after just 4 months. He joined Arsenal on loan and was subsequently sold to the same club in a separate deal.

Sales with buy-back clauses included or a part of the rights retained by Real Madrid

The number of players sold with a buy-back clause included: 23 (Sergio Reguilon, Javi Sanchez, Cristo Gonzalez, Lucas Torro, Omar Mascarell, Alvaro Morata, Diego Llorente, Burgui, Mario Hermoso, Alvaro Jimenez, Alvaro Medran, Lucas Vazquez, Casemiro, Ruben Sobrino, Mesut Ozil, Alex Fernandez, Esteban Granero, Joselu, Dani Carvajal, Sergio Canales, Ezequiel Garay, Pablo Sarabia, Rodrigo Moreno, Adam Szalai)

Players sold with a portion of their rights retained: 8 (Fran Garcia (50%), Dani Gomez (50%), Jorge De Frutos (50%), Oscar Rodriguez (25%), Javi Sanchez (50%), Miguel Baeza (50%), Javi Hernandez (50%), Mariano Diaz (35%))

Total players with an option to buy them back: 31

The number of sales with the first right of refusal included: 2 (Martin Odegaard, Achraf Hakimi)

Players who were repurchased by activating their buy-back clause: 5 (Morata, Mariano, Vazquez, Casemiro, Carvajal)

Percentage of players who were bought back using the buy-back clause: 5/31 = 15.13%

Some facts and Observations:

• Having a buy-back clause included in the deal implies that the club automatically has a right of refusal. But Achraf Hakimi and Martin Odegaard’s cases have been mentioned specifically because their deals included only a first right of refusal, which means that Real Madrid can deny any bid for the player from another club, by matching their bid.
• Casemiro and Lucas Vazquez were actually loaned to their respective clubs, but the buying clubs chose to activate the buyout clauses in their loan deals and make their moves permanent. Real Madrid repurchased them soon, by activating their buyback clauses.
• Omar Mascarell and Lucas Torro’s buy-back clauses were activated by the club only for the purpose of business, as they were immediately sold to another club for a profit.
• Mariano was sold to Lyon for 8 million euros in 2017. But when Sevilla offered 35 million euros for the striker, Real Madrid matched their bid by paying 23.5 million for the remainder of Mariano’s rights and bought him to Madrid.
• Most of these players who have buyback clauses included in their deals are young La Fabrica graduates.
• We can observe a change in the planning of the club, with time. Until 2017, most of the players were sold with buyback clauses included in their deals. But after that, the club started to rely more on the idea of retaining a part of the player’s federative rights. That tactic helped the club in two ways, as the club would practically have both buy-back clauses and sell-on clauses (they could receive a part of the transfer fee in case of a sale).

Mathematically, loans have proved to be more successful for Real Madrid than sales with buy-back clauses. We shouldn’t solely rely on stats though, because the success of a deal depends on the talent of the player, and on his performances at the buying club. And financially, sales are always beneficial for the club in the short-term future.

And we can always expect to see greater success in loans than sales because there is a difference between the way a club sees a contracted player on loan and an ex-player who has a contract with another club. The trust between a player and the club is also a factor, and a dry loan is the best form of trust in this case.

But there is more to it than meets the eye

While mentioning all cases above, I could have simply mentioned the number of players who belong to that category. But I wrote the name of every player who belongs to that category because every player has a different case.

We had a look at the number of players who returned to the club to reclaim a first-team spot and calculated the success rate. But the actual success depends on the performances of the player at the buying club and the usefulness of the player at Real Madrid after returning, as I’ve mentioned above.

Out of all the players that have claimed a first-team spot after returning, only Dani Carvajal and Casemiro have been able to establish themselves as regular starters immediately after their arrival. Fede Valverde and Marco Asensio became starting players as well, but it took time. Alvaro Morata didn’t become a starter, but he was a fantastic player in the entirety of 2016/17, and the club benefited a lot from his sale in 2017 as well. Even Lucas Vazquez has had a fantastic time since returning to the club. These players had a great time at Real Madrid, and in my eyes, these are the actual successful cases.

Other players who returned to the club after a loan spell can’t be claimed as a complete success. Vallejo had a great time at Wolfsburg, but two of his last three loan spells have been disasters. Mariano was on a scoring spree at Lyon, but he hasn’t been any good for Real Madrid. Odriozola and Jovic didn’t really have a great loan spell, and they struggled for minutes after returning to Real. Odegaard’s loan was a success, but the wait for his development wasn’t really worth it, as he left the club too soon. Every case is different, and nothing is purely black and white here.

In the same way, not every player who didn’t return to the club has been a failure. Achraf Hakimi’s loan was an extremely successful one, and he was only sold due to financial issues.  Reguilon, De Tomas, Theo Hernandez, Fran Garcia, Jorge de Frutos, and Mario Hermoso all had a great time at their buying clubs, but the club couldn’t bring them back because of a combination of factors like having someone else in their position, or due to the player’s insistence to move away from Madrid, and more.

The actually failed loan spells are the ones where the players couldn’t perform well or didn’t get regular minutes to play. Nothing can be done in the first case because it comes down to the player, but the loans where players don’t get any minutes should be a matter of concern to the club.

Reinier’s loan spell at Dortmund, Kubo’s loan spell at Villarreal, and some of Lunin’s loan spells can be labelled as some of the club’s worst loan deals. They were either loaned to clubs that had two or more players who play in the same position as them, or to a club whose system doesn’t suit the particular player. That comes down to improper planning from the club and the player’s entourage.

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The solution to this can be having a separate team at the club that monitors all the loan deals and the progress of a player and can assist the club in determining the ideal loan destination for a player. With this, the success rate of the loan spells can improve to an extent, and the number of cases where players don’t get significant minutes can reduce. Another measure would be to include a penalty clause in the loan deal if a minimum number of minutes isn’t reached, as Real Madrid once included in Lunin’s loan deal with Leganes.