CATS’ £9M BILL FOR EX-PLAYER
SUNDERLAND have been ordered to pay £9m after their two-year battle over Ricardo Alvarez ended at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), according to reports in Italy.
The Black Cats had tried to get out of a deal to sign the Argentinian playmaker on a permanent basis after an unimpressive season-long loan in 2014-15. Unwanted, Alvarez left at the end of it and later joined Sampdoria, but the Wearsiders have been handed the bill.
Sunderland have been budgeting for this, so it represents a missed opportunity more than bad news for a club £110.4m in debt and now out of the lucrative Premier League. The deal which brought in Alvarez from Inter Milan included a clause that they would buy him permanently for €10.5m at the end of the season if relegation was avoided, which it was.
In truth, Alvarez played little part in that. Skilful but too lightweight, his only goal for the club came in an FA Cup replay at Fulham. Of his eight starts only five came in the league and he made nine substitute appearances in all competitions.
At the end of the campaign Sunderland tried to back out of the deal, citing a knee problem Inter had not allowed him to have surgery on. Inter did not want their player either. Rather than lose two years of his career while the matter dragged through the courts, Alvarez, now 29, was allowed to join Sampdoria in January 2016.
CAS ruled against Sunderland before Christmas and their appeal has finally been rejected. Arguing over the matter has cost the Black Cats a lot more than had they simply honoured the agreement. Apart from the legal costs involved in fighting a court case against an Italian club in Switzerland, Brexit means the original fee is more expensive now because of the weaker pound. Today it equates to more than £9m.
With massive debts to service, it is hard to say whether the issue stopped
the Black Cats spending money in the January transfer window. When he joined last summer, before the original CAS hearing, then-manager David Moyes was under the impression he would have funds available mid-season but instead the club turned a £6.5m net profit on transfer fees at a time when the squad badly needed strengthening.
However another thing that changed in that time was that owner-chairman Ellis Short began actively looking to sell the club. That is ongoing, with Sunderland revealing on Friday they are talking to a number of interested parties.
They acknowledged the potential sale is frustrating their managerial search and warned would-be buyers they will take the club off the market if negotiations drag on too long. The uncertainty was understood to be a factor when Derek McInnes declined to leave Aberdeen and become Moyes’ replacement.
Alvarez was one of a number of South Americans signed by Uruguayan coach Gus Poyet, along with Santiago Vergini, Sebastian Coates, Oscar Ustari and Ignaccio Scocco.
Vergini was on loan for 18 months before the club were obliged to buy him permanently and he too never played for them again before being sold at a loss.
Coates’ loan from Liverpool became permanent in the summer of 2015 and he was sold in the next window.
Reserve goalkeeper Ustari never made a first-team appearance and it was revealed this week Sunderland are still owed nearly £500,000 for the 2014 sale of Scocco.
Such calamitous mismanagement — not unique to Poyet’s time or to South American signings — has become a millstone around the club’s neck.