Finances behind Jack Grealish Manchester City exit as '£50m' figure explained

Jack Grealish has made the loan switch to Everton where Manchester City will hope he can re-ignite his career

Jack Grealish has joined Everton on a season-long loan from Manchester City. Image: Everton FC

Jack Grealish begins a new chapter of his career at Everton this season after he sealed a loan move away from Manchester City on Tuesday. The 29-year-old England international joins the Toffees on a season-long loan with a view to making it a permanent switch next summer,

Some reports have claimed a non-obligatory £50m deal is in place if he does perform well at Hill Dickinson Stadium this coming campaign.

Last season was a challenge for Grealish, and while it may be felt that he hasn’t quite lived up to the £100m price tag that was paid by City to Aston Villa back in 2021, he has contributed to the club winning three Premier League titles, a Champions League crown, two FA Cups, a UEFA Super Cup and a FIFA Club World Cup across a stint that has seen him feature 157 times across all competitions, netting 17 goals.

Grealish inked a six-year contract with City back in 2021, his £100m fee amortised over those six years, before amortisation was capped at five years by the Premier League and UEFA, working out at £16.7m per year, not including his reported £15m per year in wages.

Of that £100m figure, his book value remains at £33.4m on the club’s balance sheet. For City, knowing that Grealish had fallen out of favour with boss Pep Guardiola, him kicking around the fringes of first team affairs for another season wasn’t a great option, but with the market for a player who has been out of form and carrying a large wage burden being very weak, there was little interest in clubs opting to spend a big transfer fee.

The Everton switch makes sense for City. It saves his wages sitting on the payroll for 12 months and gives Grealish a shop window to play football, even potentially shining to the point where Everton wish to make the agreement a permanent one.

He needs to play to protect some of his value, particularly if he is to have only one year remaining on his contract come next summer. With that in mind, it feels like the reports of £50m being the fee should Everton wish to buy next summer may be exaggerated given he will be almost 31 in 12 months time. The market for players at that age whose form has waned is not at that price point, and only a select group of clubs in England could engage, or those from the Saudi Arabian Pro League. With it being a non-mandatory option to buy, that £50m sum would certainly be challenged by would-be bidders.

If Grealish does well at Everton it is far more likely that that City would seek to move him on for what is left on his book value plus a small accounting profit, say £10m, which would make a £25-30m sum seem far more realistic, especially as it clears book value for a year and saves the remainder of his wages. If they sold at £25m they would have made around £9m in profit, and saved £30m in wages for the remaining two years of his contract, which wouldn’t represent bad value given he contributed to City success during his time at the club.

Everton see the Grealish deal as a risk worth taking, and City will want him to shine on Merseyside as it will enable them to have a far more buoyant market for his services next summer, something that just wasn’t there this time around to make a permanent exit from the Etihad Stadium possible.

It gives him a place to play week in, week out at the elite level, for a side who won’t be one of City’s title challengers this season. It also gives him the opportunity to force his way into Thomas Tuchel’s England plans ahead of next summer’s World Cup in North America. Being part of the Three Lions set-up at a major tournament would be a boost to City in terms of what they felt they would be able to get in the market next summer.