Eintracht Frankfurt maintain buyback option on Igor Matanovic’s Freiburg sale

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Sport Bild reports that Eintracht Frankfurt have hedged their bets on the recent sale of striker Igor Matanovic to Freiburg.The German tabloid claims that Eintracht maintain a buyback option in the event Freiburg organize a sale to another club. Matanovic’s now former Bundesliga club retains matching rights. Moreover, should Eintracht opt not to match, a 15 percent re-sale fee shall flow into the SGE coffers. 

The existence of such a clause remains unsurprising. Eintracht board-member-for-sport Markus Krösche and the club administrative team are known for building such clauses in. The recent sale of striker Ignacio “Nacho Ferri” Julia to KVC Westerlo also features a buyback option for the Spanish talent.

Some interesting examples of other buyback options being pulled in German football recently include Bayern purchasing attacker Armindo Sieb back from Greuther Fürth last summer and RC Lens preventing St. Pauli from permanently purchasing attacker Morgan Guilavogui last month.

In the Sieb’s, Bayern had a set low-cost €1.5m option built in. Lens’ buyback option enabled them to keep Guilavogui provided they paid slightly more than the purchase clause embedded in the player’s loan agreement. Lens paid St. Pauli €4.5m after the activation of the €3m clause

GGFN | Peter Weis