Spurs to pocket €7.5m from Marcus Edwards’ transfer to Sporting (update: maybe not?)

For a change of pace, instead of talking about a Tottenham Hotspur transfer story, let’s talk about what’s KIND OF a Tottenham Hotspur transfer story. News just broke that former Spurs player and academy graduate Marcus Edwards has moved from Vitoria Guimaraes to Sporting in Portugal for a €15m fee.

You might recall that Spurs were able to put a shockingly large 50% sell-on clause into Edwards’ deal when they sold him to Vitoria in 2019. Now that’s paying dividends. Since Vitoria is reported as receiving €7.5m, that means Tottenham will also receive the same amount. Not bad for a mercurial player Spurs cut bait on 2.5 years ago.

Edwards has been a delight at Vitoria and will be a good signing for Sporting as well. At Vittoria, he had 17 goals and seven assists in three seasons, and he’s still just 23. He’s certainly doing what he needs to in order to prove Spurs wrong, and fair play to him. He’s a guy that I’ll always keep one eye on to see how he’s doing.

UPDATE: Well, it turns out this is significantly more complicated than I thought. I assumed the €7.5 owed to Vittoria was their share of a €15m transfer fee. But nope — it turns out that Sporting only bought 50% of Edwards’ rights for €7.5m, which is apparently enough for the transfer to go through and for Edwards to play for Sporting instead of Vitoria, but it’s now unclear what this means for Tottenham’s sell-on clause.

Does it mean Spurs only get €3.25m now? That’s stupid. Do Spurs not get ANYTHING until Sporting sell him on? That’s even stupider. And how can you only buy half of a players’ rights and still expect him to be your player? It’s not like Sporting gets to choose which half of Edwards they buy.

This whole thing makes no goddamn sense and I don’t understand it at all. Portugal is dumb.