Friedkins to get on the phone to Man City ASAP as Everton face £3m Jack Grealish hit
Jack Grealish’s injury blow has left Everton in a bit of a nightmare scenario.
Grealish posted a broken heart emoji on his personal Instagram account on Thursday, seemingly confirming the worst.
The England international, who was desperate to be part of Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad, sustained a foot injury earlier this week.
It is feared Grealish will miss the next three months for Everton, which will effectively leave just a few weeks of the Premier League campaign.
While the severity of Grealish’s injury has yet to be officially confirmed, it seems more and more likely that his time at Hill Dickinson Stadium is as good as up.
Everton face having to pay huge slice of Jack Grealish’s wages
Everton pulled off a transfer coup of sorts by bringing in Grealish on loan from Manchester City in the summer.
There was no transfer fee as such, but the caveat was that the Toffees would have to pay a large amount of the attacker’s wages.
As per a report by The Athletic at the time, Everton agreed to part around three-quarters of Grealish’s mammoth £300,000-a-week wages.
If it is indeed true that Grealish faces 12 weeks out, that leaves Everton with 12 payments of £225,000 to hand over, which is just shy of £3million.
It goes without saying that is an astronomical sum for The Friedkin Group to pay out for a player unable to contribute.
City have every right to stand by the agreement, but the Friedkin Group will surely be straight on the phone to the Citizens to try to come to some some of better arrangement.
Grealish is more than likely to return to his parent club for treatment, as is the norm, so it may make sense to at the very least pay half the wages each.
It is a complicated matter, of course, but Everton are really not in a position to be handing over near £3m for effectively nothing.
Could FIFA intervene to help Everton?
In short, no. There is something in place called FIFA’s Club Protection Programme, which allows clubs to apply for compensation.
However, that is when a player is injured on international duty, as the matter if effectively out of the club’s hands.
- Grealish is on wages of £300,000 a week at Manchester City
- Everton agreed to pay two-third of that, which is £225,000
- Over the 12 weeks Grealish is set to miss, Everton will therefore be paying £2,700,000
In this instance, though, the injury was sustained on Everton’s watch – likely at Finch Farm – and so Everton are technically liable to continue paying the set amount agreed upon.
It may well be that Everton move to sign a replacement for Grealish, but that will be far easier said than done given they are still paying such a large amount on the City loanee.
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