The obligation to buy in Pablo Mari’s deal with AC Monza contains an appearance clause as well as a relegation clause, according to a report.
Pablo Mari joined AC Monza on loan in the summer transfer window, with the Serie A club confirming they had an obligation to buy under certain conditions.
One of these conditions was widely reported to be that Monza avoid relegation, which now looks likely. With seven games to go, Monza have a 15-point lead on the relegation zone, which seems insurmountable.
But The Telegraph report that there was also a condition relating to Mari’s appearances, writing that the £6m sale will go through if the defender “plays the required amount of games”.
There’s no word on exactly how many games Mari would need to play, but you’d imagine it would be 25 or 30, based on previous clauses of a similar nature.
Back in 2018/19, Napoli deliberately benched David Ospina after his 24th game so they could try and negotiate his price down, knowing that playing him a 25th time would activate his clause.
Despite an injury in August and his surgery on a stab wound in October, Mari actually hasn’t missed too many games for Monza this season.
He’s already up to 25 appearances, with those seven further games still to play.
Assuming the centre-back is involved in all of them, you’d have to imagine he’ll hit the appearance requirement. Though if he suddenly drops out of the side without explanation, it won’t be difficult to guess why it happened.
Monza are probably more likely to want to activate Mari’s clause than Napoli were with Ospina, given his importance to the side as they’ve raced up the table.
Despite only missing seven league games, Monza suffered five of their 12 defeats in matches without the Arsenal loanee.
With the Spanish centre-back in the team throughout 2023, they’ve now seemingly steered themselves to top-flight safety.
Another year in Serie A will give them more security to sign players like Mari, and you’d imagine it’s only a matter of time until the permanent move is confirmed.