With Aston Villa’s surprise £15million capture of Manchester City midfielder Douglas Luiz over the summer, one of the biggest debates the arrival of the 21-year-old Brazilian sparked, was whether or not the Etihad outfit had included a buy back option in the transfer.
With two goals in nine appearances, Luiz has quickly impressed many and few could doubt his commitment in the clash last weekend, but one of the small bits of news to come out of Pep Guardiola’s after game press interviews, was that the buy back clause does exist.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, he explained.
“He would be here if a work permit were possible, if the Premier League said it would be possible, but now he is at Aston Villa. We have an option to get him back but sometimes life is like this. We wanted him because last season we had problems in that position because we didn’t buy a holding midfielder. We wanted him before so we thought about it but the rules with the work permit meant it was not possible. I thought he would be here with the pre-season he played last year in the States, he was really good. I think he had the quality to play with us but he could not do it. The talent is always there, we’ll see at the end of the season what his level is but the quality is always there.”
Understandably, Guardiola doesn’t reveal what the buy back clause is but on previous sales where they’ve pulled that trick, it’s safe to assume I think it would be roughly at around double our initial investment, so from a financial point of view we should be covered there.
As most know with his work permit issues at City though, this always felt like a deal that would suit all parties – even if his spell at Villa Park wasn’t set to be a long one.
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