{"id":79194,"date":"2026-06-07T21:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/79194\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T21:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:38:21","slug":"calafiori-transfer-resolution-close-with-arsenal-stars-curious-case-to-make-clubs-think-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/79194\/","title":{"rendered":"Calafiori transfer resolution close with Arsenal star’s curious case to make clubs think twice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riccardo Calafiori has been linked with a move from Arsenal to Real Madrid. Were it to happen, it would be the fourth permanent transfer of his career. But there is still an ongoing dispute about the first, which could open up a can of worms that\u2019ll make most clubs think twice about the fine print of their future deals.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start from the beginning.<\/p>\n

August 2022: Calafiori<\/a> is ready to leave his boyhood club Roma on a permanent basis after spending the second half of the previous season on loan with Genoa. His destination this time will take him out of Italy.<\/p>\n

Swiss Super League side Basel are the buyers. This is long before anyone had an inkling of Calafiori having a future at the elite level. He had been a big prospect in the Roma academy, but his career was nearly over before it had begun when he suffered a serious knee injury at the age of 16. The fact he was able to bounce back and eventually make 18 first-team appearances for Roma was a success in itself.<\/p>\n

But he reached the end of the road in Italy and was faced with having to rebuild again.<\/p>\n

Basel paid Roma a modest \u20ac2.5m for Calafiori, with the Italians retaining a 40% sell-on clause. Remember that bit later.<\/p>\n

Calafiori\u2019s time with Basel turns out to be productive. A year and a day later, he earns a return to Italy, signing for Bologna at a cost of \u20ac4m. Basel arrange a 50% sell-on clause.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s at Bologna that Calafiori explodes. Remodelled as a centre-back and named in the Serie A Team of the Year, his value skyrockets.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Arsenal<\/a> come forward, paying \u20ac40m plus \u20ac5m in add-ons and agreeing to another sell-on clause.<\/p>\n

But the move was almost held up due to a dispute between his first two clubs, Roma and Basel. And a resolution to that dispute is only just around the corner, two years on.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, Roma\u2019s argument has been that the extra windfall Basel received with their sell-on clause for Calafiori should filter back into their own.<\/p>\n

Basel didn\u2019t just make \u20ac4m from selling Calafiori. They earned another \u20ac22.5m on top with their 50% sell-on clause.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take a mathematician to work out that 40% of \u20ac26.5m is greater than 40% of \u20ac4m.<\/p>\n

Basel\u2019s counter-argument has been that the sell-on clause should only have applied to his direct move away from them.<\/p>\n

The case has been heard in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and is now expected to lead to Roma receiving a settlement fee in the region of \u20ac6m.<\/p>\n

That might not sound like much for a club of their fame, but they\u2019ve been locked in a Financial Fair Play settlement agreement with UEFA for the past four years and it could be a timely boost towards them coming out of it this summer.<\/p>\n

In the broader scheme, it could set a precedent for how sell-on clauses are structured. Clubs are going to be careful going forward, whether they\u2019re the Roma or the Basel in their situation, not wanting to rule themselves out of future windfalls and being more meticulous with the small print of their agreements.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first case of its kind. Jorgen Strand Larsen\u2019s move from Wolves to Crystal Palace in January, for example, is believed to have helped his first club, Sarpsborg, raise some extra money thanks to a sell-on clause they\u2019d set up when moving him on to Groningen back in 2020.<\/p>\n

But Calafiori\u2019s is an extreme case of a player whose value has grown exponentially in a short space of time.<\/p>\n

At long last, it\u2019s nearly resolved. Just in time for his next transfer<\/a>\u2026?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Riccardo Calafiori has been linked with a move from Arsenal to Real Madrid. Were it to happen, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[3474,77,41181,21599,37760,41182],"class_list":["post-79194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basel","tag-arsenal","tag-basel","tag-f365-features","tag-front-page","tag-home-page","tag-riccardo-calafiori"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116710991878679809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}