Rayan Ait-Nouri has been the talk of the town at Wolves for the past few weeks – and some have wondered about that sell-on clause that was inserted into the deal that brought him to Molineux.
The Algeria international has really stepped up in recent weeks in the absence of key attacking players.
After scoring against Burnley on Tuesday night, Ait-Nouri now has three goals in his last four games, and is probably showing his best form since he signed for the club.
Ait-Nouri joined Wolves in the summer of 2020, signing initially on loan from French club Angers.
He impressed enough for Wolves to then spend £10 million to sign him permanently.
That was seen as a very good deal at the time, but there has always been a sell-on clause of 50%.
Sell-on clauses are rarely so high, and journalist Liam Keen has been speaking about how much it would cost Wolves to get rid of it…
Wolves must pay around £9.5m to get rid of sell-on clause for Rayan Ait-Nouri
Wolves fans would like to think that Ait-Nouri is going to be sticking around for a good while yet at Molineux.
He is still only 22 and many years away from his peak, and he has the potential to become very special.
He likely won’t go anywhere this summer, but if he continues on as he is, then the club may well struggle to keep him beyond the summer of 2025. He already has interest from big clubs like Manchester City and Liverpool.
The 50% sell-on clause obviously means that whatever Wolves sell Ait-Nouri for, half the money will go to Angers.
But E&S journalist Liam Keen was speaking about the clause on the latest E&S podcast, and has shared how much it will take for the club to buy it out.
He said: “That is roughly around £9.5 million for Wolves to buy that out. Obviously depending on whether he does get sold, it would probably be worth their while buying that out to then sell him on.”
Wolves need to do this when as soon as they’re financially sound
So it will cost around £9.5 million to remove the sell-on clause, and you would imagine the club will be quite happy to do that as soon as they are financially sound.
Realistically, Wolves would probably not have been able to sign Ait-Nouri permanently for as cheap as £10 million without agreeing to that clause.
It’s not ideal that it’s there. But at least there is an option to get rid of it, albeit a pricey one.
But considering how much money Ait-Nouri could go for, it is very much in Wolves’ interest to spend the money and get the clause removed.
Potentially, he could sell for even more than the current club record £53 million that Matheus Nunes generated when he joined Manchester City last summer.