Why Tottenham Are Willing to Pay £26 Million for Berardi

As the prospect of acquiring Saido Berahino appears to fade slowly away, Tottenham have reportedly fixed their sights on Italian wunderkind Domenico Berardi.

The Evening Standard reports that the club have already registered a £26 million bid for the young Sassuolo forward. Should the deal go through, Berardi would be the third most expensive player the club have ever purchased – second if you believe that Valencia never got the full £30 million for Roberto Soldado due to his inability to hit performance minimums.

So why is it that Tottenham are willing to stump this much money on Berardi and not Berahino, who would have reportedly gone for about as much and already has Premier League experience?

The probable answer is unusually complicated.

Tottenham are right to be interested in Berardi. He is a genuine phenom. At 21 years old, he’s already had two stellar seasons with Sassuolo, notching 31 goals and 16 assists over 61 appearances for the Neroverdi. This season isn’t shaping up to be as prolific, but there’s still every reason to expect this kid to be a star one day.

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Perhaps at this point you’re wondering why we haven’t all heard more about Berardi over the course of his rise from precious teenager to full-fledged star. Shouldn’t he have been the subject of near-constant transfer speculation since he first began to show signs of considerable quality two seasons ago?

There’s a simple reason why he hasn’t been making headlines up to this point. Due to a complicated practice in Italy of “co-ownership“, Berardi wasn’t exactly a full-fledged Sassuolo player until this past summer despite never having work any other shirt in his professional career. He was, in fact, the half-property of perennial Serie A champions Juventus.

It was thought from the get-go that Berardi was just biding his time until his rights were fully purchased by Juventus, at which point he could dawn the black and white stripes and help win even more trophies for the storied club. Considering Juventus already had their claws in the player, it made sense that no other clubs even bothered making a move for the young winger.

And then something unexpected happened last summer. Juventus sold over their rights to Berardi to Sassuolo for the relatively paltry amount of €10 million. He was now under the sole control of Sassuolo, and no longer was the looming prospect of a Juventus move preventing other clubs from expressing their own interest.

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Is this some rare misstep from Juventus, a club who is well known for their savvy transfer market moves? Not quite. As SB Nation reported on back when his full rights were turned over to Sassuolo, Juventus made sure that they still had the option to come back for Berardi. A buy-back clause was inserted into the sale wherein Juventus could come back for the player next summer for a mere €18 million.

So, to sum up: Berardi is on the market, but only because Juventus has it structured in such a way that they’re confident they’ll acquire the player back anyways.

Tottenham’s rumored £26 million bid, then, is more than just a testament of Berardi’s clear talents. It is also an attempt by the club to convince Sassuolo to sell before the planned for buy-back this coming summer.

Why would this work? Can’t Juventus just sneak in and activate their buy-back clause? It might not be that easy.

Juventus had a net transfer outlay of just about €50 million in the summer of 2015. That might not seem like a whole lot considering what other big clubs spend, but it’s a significant chunk of change considering the current state of Serie A. The Bianconeri’s sale of Berardi’s rights to Sassulo was, for instance, thought to be a quick way to scrounge up some cash in order to finance last summer’s overhaul. It’s safe to say that Juventus are not a club that operates in the red all that often, at least in terms of transfers.

Tottenham’s bid is therefore counting on two things:

One, that Sassuolo are more interested in getting the equivalent of €35 million from Tottenham in January for Berardi than getting €18 million from Juventus in the summer. More money now is better than less money later, essentially.

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Two, that Juventus would be disinclined – or completely unable – to make any kind of move for Berardi mid-way through the season, and therefore wouldn’t challenge Tottenham’s bid. Had things gone to plan, they likely would have had to finance Berardi’s buy in the summer with the sale of other players anyhow, and they’re unlikely to want to do that right when they’re back in contention for the Scudetto and the Champions League.

All of which makes this move eminently understandable from both football and economic reasons. Tottenham would be getting a fine, young footballer who can be molded into a Mauricio Pochettino kind of player, and the club has to spend barely any more than they would have in the summer for a temperamental player who likely isn’t nearly as good as Berardi. Everyone wins! Well, except for Juventus and Berahino.