Football and contracts: Does it pay to have a long-term deal?

What do Kylian Mbappe, Gareth Bale, Paul Pogba and Luka Modric have in common?

They have all excelled at some of European football's biggest clubs and have generated transfer fees of around 450 million Euros, but all could be on the move for a grand total of nothing, at least in terms of transfer fees this summer.

Football's transfer windows generate massive publicity in the sport. The mix of speculation, gossip, and the astronomical amount of money grabs supporters' attention, particularly during the off-season when no games are played.

In the last decade, French side Paris Saint-Germain completed two of the biggest transfers in the game's history. In 2018, 20-year-old Kylian Mbappe switched from AS Monaco to PSG for the gigantic fee of €180 million. That price tag was still considerably less than the €222 million Barcelona had accepted from the newly cash-rich French side 12 months earlier, which brought Neymar to Paris.

The Parisian side signed footballing giants Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Gini Wijnaldum and, most notably, Lionel Messi, all on free transfers in 2021. Saving money on fees gives them more money to spend on contracts. Outside of the contract clause, the combined transfer fees for the quartet would have stretched into the hundreds of millions of Euros but having not spent a penny, it was safe to say Les Parisien's had 'won' this particular transfer window.

Named after Jean-Marc Bosman, a relatively unknown footballer whose actions have contributed to the huge wealth players are afforded today. The origins go back to the 1990s and refer to a footballer moving to another club on a free transfer. The clause is popularly referred to as a 'Bosman'.

The Belgian took his club to the European Court of Justice