High buyout clauses are not valuations

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Surprise surprise Gonzalo Higuain is not for sale, what a shock. I fail to see why clubs like Arsenal think they have a hope of signing the guy. Higuain and his agent are playing games and trying to force Napoli to lower his price, he has a huge buyout clause and as a reward he get a high salary.

That's how these buyout clauses work, if you want a wage increase, you have to agree to an increase in buyout clause so you are effectively stuck at the club, which is good for the club who want to keep players, not handy for players who then decide they want to leave.

Napoli Head of Communications, Nicola Lombardo  said the President Aurelio De Laurentiis doesn't want to sell him and why would they, he's the leading all-time scorer in Serie A and he is only 28. he is prolific, strikers like him are gold dust at the right club and clearly he fits at Napoli.

"Gonzalo never said he wanted to leave. Juventus have never asked for him and Aurelio De Laurentiis does not want to sell him. We are talking about rumours that are fuelled by the press, who write story upon story. But he will be here in Dimaro to start pre-season on July 25."

We have the same situation in Spain and Portugal when we try and buy players from there and of course our media use that figure as a players valuation, which it isn't. Jackson Martinez was never worth his release clause and he was a flop at Atletico Madrid. He is now in China.

Islam Slimani, at his age (29 tomorrow), simply isn't worth his release clause, yet our press were trying to tell that was his value. Some fans lap that up and believe that is what he's worth, promptly telling all and sundry that we should pay the price. The prices being quoted at the moment are daft, clubs are slapping £10-million on a price simply because the Premier League has money.

Finding players that aren't overpriced will only get harder with the increase in revenue in the league.