Real Madrid’s €30m Takefusa Kubo transfer mistake

Robin Bairner

• 18 Feb 2023 09:53 CST
• 4 min read

Real Madrid are keeping tabs on Real Sociedad attacking midfielder Takefusa Kubo just six months after he was sold to La Real.

Los Blancos’ U-turn is looking likely to be an expensive one for the club, though.

Kubo moved to Sociedad for just €6.5 million in the summer, and while Real Madrid took out some insurance in the deal by inserting certain clauses into the Japan international’s transfer agreement, it will not mitigate much of the damage caused by selling him for such a low fee.

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When Kubo’s deal was done in the summer, he had an Estimated Transfer Value of €11.3m.

Madrid, though, might have felt they were not getting bad money for selling him at the price they did. A 50% sell-on clause was inserted into the deal, while there is also a buy-back clause with Real Sociedad, meaning that they have the opportunity to match any bid accepted for the 21-year-old by their Primera Division rivals.

Now, though, it is Sociedad who have clearly got the better side of the deal.

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Kubo's transfer value has exploded

Kubo’s latest ETV is €41.1m – close to €30m more than he was worth in the summer – and the incredible form that he is showing means that it is very likely that if and when he moves, it will be for the minimum fee release clause in his contract, which runs until 2027.

To trigger that, a buying club will have to pay €60m.

As such, Real Madrid have made a horrible misjudgement on a player who has had several loan spells of mixed quality in La Liga but who caught the eye at the 2020 Olympics in the summer of 2021.

If Kubo is signed by another club, Madrid will be in for a significant windfall, but if they really do wish to buy him back, as some sections of the Spanish press suggest, they will be doing so for a fee that is vastly higher than they one they received from Real Sociedad in the summer.

Los Blancos, though, will be wary of other such deals that have failed, with Mariano Diaz notably struggling when returning to the club after a one-season spell at Lyon.