West Ham United must let Lucas Paqueta hold exit talks after release clause development
West Ham must let Lucas Paqueta hold talks over an exit if his release clause is met this summer, according to Dan Plumley.
It has been shared that the Brazilian international has an £85million release clause in his contract, with the Hammers having no intention of negotiating and any interested parties will have to match that valuation.
The football finance expert has revealed that the Irons can’t do a lot if the 26-year-old’s clause is activated because they built that risk into his deal when they signed him from Lyon in 2022.
“If the club agreed at the point of the original negotiation to a release clause with the player and the agent, then if somebody does come along and hits that release clause, then there’s not a lot the club can do,” he exclusively told West Ham Zone.
“That doesn’t mean the transfer is going to come off because there’s still the negotiation between the new purchasing club, the player and the agent.
“But it gets the buying club in the door if you trigger the release clause because it’s in the contract and there’s nothing the club can do in that regard. That is the risk built into the contract in the first phase, so West Ham benefit from the early stages of that when the player is performing particularly well.
“But if he’s performing that well that somebody then comes and triggers the release clause, then they’ve got to let that player have the conversation.
“I guess it’s part and parcel of the nature of the transfer market at the minute that it comes with risk attached and you’re looking at a release clause in terms of how much of that risk you want to build in and where you set that number.
“Of course, somebody has then got to match that number to get a foot in the door.”
Could Lucas Paqueta leave West Ham?
It seems increasingly likely that Paqueta will leave West Ham this summer due to the increasing interest in him from Champions League clubs.
As Plumley points out, there is very little the Hammers can do to keep hold of the attacking midfielder if one of the interested parties activates his release clause.
But there is a chance that the Brazilian may not have signed for the Irons if the clause wasn’t included in his contract, given that he would likely want to hold the option of making a big-money move.
In other West Ham news, Alan Shearer has been slammed after what he said about David Moyes.
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