Sorry, doesn't read as well as it could do!

It's beneficial to the player to have a deal like this, as they can't be held to a club that's not in as good a position as when they signed (they've dropped a division) - especially if they want to continue playing at a higher level.

What I meant with the grovelling bit, is the situation you get when a player refuses to move on as he's sitting pretty on a high salary and is quite happy to do so. In this case the two parties have to sit down and the club usually ends up paying off a majority of an expensive contract just to get rid of a percentage of it (for example, the way we paid off Walsh was bad business for us...I'm sure there's a more recent one, just can't think of one).

Basically, it's a clause that's put in by the player when they sign - the club just gamble that they won't get relegated or the player won't activate it if they want to keep them (which I'm sure we do, and the wages would now be adjusted to 'Championship level').

I remember Sam Allardyce talking about it a couple of years ago, saying that Bolton would be screwed if they were relegated as they operated the majority of their contracts with this clause (although he did concede that was how they secured the services of the players they did).

Posted By: Declan, Jun 28, 11:07:14