Conor Coady has perhaps not appeared for Leicester City as much as either party would have liked following his big-Enzo money move last summer, but the Foxes achievements may still provide the defender’s former club Wolverhampton Wanderers with a windfall.
Leicester look to be in the driving seat for both promotion and the Championship league title following their 5-0 thrashing of fourth-placed Southampton on Tuesday and a return to Premier League football could be just around the corner.
That may invoke a clause in the transfer deal that saw Coady swap Molyneux Stadium for the King Power Stadium and would be a welcome dividend for the Premier League side.
Whether the Foxes’ success will invoke the dividend or not, they will be hoping to get more from their new man into the next season.Coady signed for Leicester last summer for a deal reported to be worth an initial £7.5million, and Sky Sports also reported that the deal included a £1million add-on clause.
Although the precise details of that clause were not made public, a common framing of such add-on clauses is whether the buying club goes on to achieve their objectives, which likely would have been gaining promotion back into the Premier League in Leicester’s case.
If that is the basis of the clause, then the Foxes’ recent return to form and their re-taking of the top spot in the second tier will come as a boost to Wolves, who would be set for a seven-figure payout in that scenario.
Such clauses can also include personal achievements by the player or reaching a set number of appearances or goals, but with Coady joining at a later point in his career, basing the clause on promotion would appear to have been the most likely decision between the parties.
Based purely on what Leicester fans have seen this season from their new man, the common conclusion will be that Wolves have seen the better end of the deal so far.
Coady began his Foxes career with a freak pre-season injury that left him with a broken foot, but since his returning from that issue, he has featured just 11 times in the Championship, starting seven and spending the majority of his time on manager Enzo Maresca’s bench.
It’s not what the club or the player would have hoped for from one of their marquee summer signings, but the three-year deal he signed at the KingEnzo Power last summer means there is still plenty of time for the move to bear fruit.
