Arsenal fans are divided in opinions over Cesc Fabregas’ transfer to Chelsea from Barcelona. Fabregas had enjoyed eight successful years at the North London club and earned a ‘cult-hero’ status among the Arsenal fans.
Naturally, his transfer to London rivals Chelsea, raised few eyebrows among the fans, with many even questioning his loyalty for the Gunners.
However, Fabregas himself clarified that returning to Arsenal was his first preference and only when Arsene Wenger had passed the chance to sign him, he looked for options elsewhere to resurrect his career.
Fabregas became the first official signing for the Blues this season, for an undisclosed fee, which is thought to be in the region of £27m. Arsenal were entitled to receive 50% of the transfer fee, provided Barcelona sell the midfielder for over £30m. While, such possibility has gone by the board, Arsenal can still gain around €3m from Barcelona.
According to Spanish newspaper AS, when Fabregas was signed him in the summer of 2011, Barcelona made a deal with Arsenal that if they were to sell the Spaniard for an equal or lower fee than the one they got him for (€34m and €5m variables if titles won), they’d have to pay all the title-related bonuses agreed in the contract regardless of whether the club won those titles or not.
As a result, Barcelona have to pay €3m to Arsenal, since of the €5m of total clauses for titles agreed, only €2m have been paid so far, referring to the league won in 2012-13 under Tito Vilanova.
Keeping all the emotions aside for a while, it’s not hard to understand why Arsenal passed on this opportunity to re-sign Fabregas. Had the situation been presented to Wenger last summer, the Frenchman would have definitely signed him without turning a hair. But now, Arsenal have an avalanche of attacking midfielders in the side and signing Fabregas would only complicate the system.
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