Tottenham Hotspur should benefit nicely from Marcus Edwards’ emergence

Tottenham Hotspur were not great yesterday in their 2-0 defeat against Sporting Club yesterday. Spurs are in second place in the group and a victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in match week three will calm things down, but we’re not here to talk about those remaining fixtures in the Champions League group stage.

Spurs Academy graduate Marcus Edwards was quite good yesterday, and he’s been on this upward trajectory for the last couple of seasons. Still just 23 years old, the London native is thriving in Portugal and it seems inevitable that someone is going to come knocking for him. Matt Law brought this up in a piece today, reminding everyone that Spurs still hold a 50% sell-on clause for a potential transfer.

Despite how we know some supporters feel about Law, he does have his sources and this all lines up because of that transfer involving Vittoria:

Sources in Portugal have confirmed to Telegraph Sport that Spurs transferred the full 50 per cent sell-on clause they negotiated as part of Edwards’ move to Vitoria Guimaraes over to his Sporting contract.

Edwards joined Sporting in January on a contract that runs until 2026 and contains a release clause worth just under £52 million, which means Spurs could one day bank half of that fee.

Tottenham allowed Edwards, who only three years earlier had been compared to Lionel Messi, to move to Portugal to Vitoria on a free transfer in 2019 in return for a 50 per cent sell-on fee.

We covered this at the time, but since it’s been a couple of seasons, it’s pretty simple: Spurs could have cashed in when Edwards headed to Portugal but a deal was reached that allowed Edwards to move while Spurs retained their 50% sell-on. At the time, it was perhaps questionable because the suggested fee that Spurs would have collected was around £4.5 million.

During the match yesterday, there was plenty of supporters on Twitter wondering if we could buy Edwards back because he’s looked every part the attacking midfielder we hoped he would become. For a couple of seasons we had him at the top of the list of prospects to flourish, but he wanted regular playing time when he felt he was ready and that wasn’t going to happen in north London. The good news is we could technically buy him with a standard transfer, but there’s no actual buyback clause. There’s also no indication that Edwards is pining to return to London even though it’s his birthplace.

The release clause of £52 million might be off-putting to a lot of clubs, but if Edwards keeps tearing it up, someone is going to make those phone calls to Lisbon and swipe their Amex Black Card. It may not be the full release clause, but Spurs delaying their cash-in looks to be a brilliant move financially.