Leeds United will have to pay £18m to RB Leipzig for the transfer of Jean-Kevin Augustin despite never permanently signing the player, according to a judgement from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Having progressed through the youth academy of Paris Saint-Germain in his native France, the forward joined Red Bull-owned Leipzig in 2017 before spending six months on loan with AS Monaco back in Ligue 1 at the beginning of the 2019-20 campaign.
That deal was cut short when Leipzig agreed a deal with Leeds, then leading the Championship under maverick Argentine manager Marcelo Bielsa, to send Augustin to Yorkshire for the second half of the same campaign.
The deal included an obligation for Leeds to purchase Augustin permanently for £18m if they secured promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season.
Bielsa led the team to the title, returning them to the English top flight for the first time since relegation at the end of the 2002-03 season, despite Augustin making a paltry three appearances in his time at Elland Road.
That meant that Augustin’s permanent transfer should have automatically been completed, as per the agreement the two clubs had made in January.
But complications arose due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought football to a halt in March 2020 and saw the culmination of the Championship season delayed from mid-May to July.
With the player making minimal impact, and the fee a significant one for a team which now had to build a squad capable of competing in the Premier League, Leeds insisted that they were not obligated to sign the player because the pandemic meant the normal and agreed upon deadline for promotion had passed.
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Now though, CAS has formally sided with Leipzig and Leeds will have to pay the full fee for a player they never purchased.
CAS said: “The panel held that the ‘Purchase Obligation’ had been triggered at the end of the 2019-2020 season, even though the season had concluded later than expected due to the disruption caused by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and confirmed the ‘Challenged Decision’ in full, including the obligation of LUFC to pay to RB Leipzig the first instalment of the transfer fee, the two other instalments being not due yet, at the time of the Fifa procedure.”
Augustin’s career has nosedived since Leipzig paid around £14m to sign him from PSG five years ago. Both the German club and Leeds agreed to relinquish any claim to the player’s registration in October 2020, allowing him to sign for French side FC Nantes as a free agent that same month. But he made just 11 appearances for the club’s first-team, scoring zero goals, and was demoted to the B team for a portion of the 2021-22 campaign.
The 25-year-old was allowed to sign for FC Basel in Switzerland for free this summer, and has experienced something of a small resurgence, scoring three goals in nine appearances since joining Alexander Frei’s side.
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