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Football contract clauses, explained: from the wage to a space ban

What is really in a footballer’s contract? Ten kinds of clause in plain English, from wages and release clauses to a space ban, with every source linked.

By the Oddsivio team18 min read

Your job contract probably doesn't say where you can live. A Premier League footballer's does: he can't live anywhere the club reasonably thinks is unsuitable for his job. He also has to give up to six hours a week to promotions and community work. And every Premier League club has to use the same standard contract.

That is handy, because signed contracts almost never get published. The blank form does, and so do the rules behind it. So we read those, plus what has come out in rulings, club filings and leaks. This guide goes through ten kinds of clause in short, from the most ordinary to the strangest. Our film tells the stories in full.

Prefer to watch? Our 19-minute film goes through the same ten clauses.

Sources checked: 15 October 2026.

Under each clause is every source the film uses for it, with its link. Official means a rulebook, a ruling, a company filing or a statement from the club, league or governing body itself. Reported means journalism, an interview or a leak. Where a figure is reported and not confirmed, the text says so.

  • Official: Premier League Handbook 2026/27 (PDF). The standard contract is Form 12: where a player may live is clause 3.2.3, the six hours a week are clause 4.1, and Rule T.10 makes every club use the form.

1. The wage

In short: quoted by the week, paid by the month.

Headlines put Erling Haaland on a reported £500,000 a week, but he isn't paid every week. The standard contract can put the wage per week or per year, and either way it is paid once a month, for the month just gone. The weekly habit is history: for sixty years the rules capped a footballer's wage by the week, and by 1960 the cap was £20. It was scrapped in 1961, and that same year Fulham made Johnny Haynes the first footballer in England paid £100 a week. Fines still count in weeks. For a first offence a club can normally fine a player up to two weeks' basic pay, and in 2012 Manchester City fined Mario Balotelli two weeks' wages, £340,000, for his disciplinary record.

The film’s sources for this clause

2. The signing-on fee

In short: a bonus for signing, paid in yearly slices.

In the Premier League a signing-on fee on any contract longer than a year has to be paid in equal slices, one a year. If the player is sold while some of it is unpaid, his old club has to pay him the rest straight away. He can give it up, but only in writing. And if the move happened because he asked for it in writing, his old club can keep the rest, which is one reason a player who wants out may never put it on paper. In France, Kylian Mbappé left Paris Saint-Germain in 2024 when his contract ran out, with the last slice of his signing bonus, nearly €37 million, held back. PSG said he had agreed to give up money, but couldn't show that in writing. In December 2025 a Paris labour court ordered the club to pay it with other money he was owed, about €61 million in all, and PSG didn't appeal.

The film’s sources for this clause

3. Bonuses

In short: not only for winning, and not always paid with the wage.

Bonuses can be for appearances, goals, assists, clean sheets, awards, or where the team finishes, and many are squad bonuses set out in the club's own scheme. In 2012 Hugo Lloris signed a contract with Tottenham that paid him £3,500 every time he started a competitive match they drew or lost. When they won, the club said, he got double. Mario Balotelli's 2014 deal with Liverpool promised £50,000 a goal, but only after his fifth of the season, and he never got there. Both clauses came out in a leak. Some bonuses don't arrive with the monthly wage at all: Peter Crouch's goal bonus at Stoke, for ten Premier League goals or more, would only be paid after the season, on 28 June.

The film’s sources for this clause

4. Pay that rises and falls with the club

In short: the wage is written into the contract, but part of it can move with the club's season.

Manchester United have said so in public, in the report they file each year with the US stock-market regulator. The one filed in September 2026 says most of their first-team contracts step up in pay when the club plays in the Champions League. If it misses out, there is no step-up. Relegation clauses tie pay to the club too, and they hit harder. Peter Crouch's Stoke contract would take 45% off his wage for each relegation. When West Ham went down in May 2026, their players were reported to face a cut of 50%, though one report puts the usual cut lower, at 25 to 30%. And some contracts have no relegation clause at all: they are fully guaranteed.

The film’s sources for this clause

5. Injury, pension and the age of 35

In short: full pay for eighteen months when injured, a pension funded by transfer fees, and one line that puzzled the players themselves.

If a player gets injured or falls ill, the standard contract keeps paying his full basic wage for eighteen months. After that he gets half, until he is fit again or his contract ends. His pension is paid for by transfers: every transfer fee a Premier League club pays carries a 4% levy, and that money funds the players' pension scheme. Until the 2026/27 edition, the contract also said the player's normal retirement age was 35. Peter Crouch, who retired at 38, had the line read out on his podcast, and nobody there could explain it. The likely answer is that normal retirement age is a pension term: it is when his pension can start, not when he has to stop playing. The scheme still lets members who joined before April 2006 take their pension at 35. Later members wait until at least 55.

The film’s sources for this clause

6. Image rights

In short: the right to use a player's name and face to sell things, often paid through a second contract.

In the club's kit, next to its name and badge, a player's picture is the club's to use. Outside that it is his own: he can sign his own deals, as long as they don't clash with the club's own products, or with the main sponsors of the club or the league. Many players put the rights into a company they own, and the club signs a second contract with that company. Money paid to the company isn't taxed as wages, but only if the club is really buying his image. If it is really paying for his football, it is wages.

That is how Hull City lost a tax case. A second contract paid a company in the British Virgin Islands about £187,000 a year for the Brazilian midfielder Geovanni's image rights abroad, exactly a quarter of his wage. Hull had no plan to use his image abroad, no valuation of it, and never used it. In 2019 a tax tribunal ruled that the money was wages. The judge didn't call the deal a sham, but said the payments were part of his earnings.

Manchester City's case is a different kind: it is about the Premier League's financial rules, not tax. In a decision published in September 2026, an independent commission found that Manchester City had sold its players' image rights to a company called Fordham and booked £24.5 million from it as income, and that about £49 million of the players' image money never showed up in the club's costs. The commission found that both sums were really the owner's money, and that the aim was to look as if the club met the financial rules. The League calls it a sham circular arrangement. Manchester City deny wrongdoing and, as of 14 October 2026, are appealing.

The film’s sources for this clause

7. The release clause

In short: a set price for ending a contract early. In Spain it is the player's way out. In England it is often only a promise.

In Spain almost every contract has a release clause. Spain's rules for professional sport let a player walk out, but he owes his club compensation, set by a court if the contract names no figure. That is why Spanish clubs write the figure in. It is paid in the player's name, usually with the buying club's money, and then he is free: the selling club can't block it, and nobody can make him use it. In August 2017 Neymar's lawyers paid Barcelona €222 million, with money that came from Paris Saint-Germain. Barcelona's president at the time says the club then raised its stars' clauses. Lionel Messi's went up to €700 million, and in 2023, under a new board, Barcelona put €1 billion on Lamine Yamal, when he was sixteen.

In summer 2026 Hull City offered Braga the €30 million in goalkeeper Lukáš Horníček's clause, but in instalments. That made it an ordinary offer, so Braga said no. In England clauses are softer: a promise from the club, and sometimes just a promise to listen. In 2013 Arsenal bid £40 million and one pound for Liverpool's Luis Suárez, over a clause he said let him leave. Liverpool said the contract didn't oblige them to sell, and he stayed another season.

The film’s sources for this clause

8. The clubs' deal

In short: add-ons, sell-ons and buy-backs are not in the player's contract. They are in the deal between the two clubs.

Some famous clauses sit in a second document that the player usually doesn't sign. An add-on is money that is only paid if something happens: when Everton signed Dele Alli from Tottenham in 2022, the first £10 million was due after his twentieth game, and he played thirteen. A sell-on is a share of a future sale. A buy-back lets the club that sold a player buy him back: Real Madrid sold Nico Paz to Como in 2024 with one at about €10 million, and after new terms in summer 2026 the buy-back, for the 2027/28 season, is reported to be about €80 million.

A loan deal can even try to decide who plays. In 2014 a clause reportedly charged Atlético Madrid €3 million each time Thibaut Courtois, on loan from Chelsea, played against Chelsea. UEFA's rules forbid any club from having a say in who another club picks, so UEFA called the clause void, and Courtois played both legs of their Champions League semi-final. In the Premier League no clause is needed: the current rule says a player on loan can't play against the club that lent him, unless both clubs agree in writing.

The film’s sources for this clause

9. The player's share

In short: from 2027 a lower-paid player sold abroad gets 5% of his own transfer fee. Spain and Argentina got there first, with 15%.

A transfer fee is paid from one club to another. But from 1 January 2027, if a player's basic pay is under €150,000 a year and he is sold to a club abroad, FIFA's rules give him 5% of the fixed fee. The selling club pays him as the money comes in. The rule only covers contracts signed from 2027, and he can sign away no more than half of his share. It came out of a deal FIFA struck with the players' union, FIFPRO, and with the clubs and leagues.

Spain got there long before FIFA. Since 1985 its rules have given a player at least 15% of the fee when he is sold, unless he agrees otherwise, and in 2015 Spain's Supreme Court made Getafe pay Derek Boateng €731,000: 15% of his move to Dnipro. Argentina's players get 15% too, and some of them hand it back. Enzo Fernández was reported to have left his share with River Plate in 2022. Matías Zaracho gave up his, about a million dollars, for Racing Club of Avellaneda, the club that raised him. Others went to court, saying their club made them give it up, and two won on appeal.

The film’s sources for this clause

10. The strange ones

In short: a weight clause, a bonus for behaving, and a ban on space travel. All three are real.

When Neil Ruddock joined Crystal Palace in 2000, a weight clause went into his contract. The club's chairman, Simon Jordan, says he fined Ruddock under it, and reports say each time he weighed in over the limit, it cost him 10% of his wages. Mario Balotelli's Liverpool deal promised him £1 million each summer, as long as he behaved like a Liverpool player and wasn't sent off three times. He was never sent off at Liverpool, but neither Liverpool nor Balotelli has ever said whether he got the million.

And the space clause is real. In 1999 Sunderland signed the Swedish midfielder Stefan Schwarz, and he says an agent on the deal offered him a seat on one of the first commercial flights into space. The club worried he would take it, so it wrote a clause into his contract: no space travel. Sunderland's chief executive said the club normally insured a player for the length of his contract, and like a lot of insurance it had exclusions, such as dangerous activities. Schwarz never went to space. Today every Premier League contract has a clause that does the same job: the player agrees not to do anything that would void the club's insurance on him, or fall outside its cover. Sunderland just spelled it out.

The film’s sources for this clause

Quick questions

Are footballers paid weekly or monthly?

Monthly, in the Premier League. The wage is quoted by the week out of habit, because for sixty years the rules capped pay by the week. The standard contract pays once a month, for the month just gone.

What is a release clause in football?

A set price for ending a contract early. In Spain the player pays it in his own name, usually with the buying club's money, and the selling club can't block it. In England a clause is often only a promise from the club, and sometimes just a promise to listen.

What is a signing-on fee?

A bonus for signing a contract. In the Premier League it has to be paid in equal yearly slices on any contract longer than a year, and a player who asks in writing to leave can lose what is still unpaid.

What is the difference between an add-on, a sell-on and a buy-back?

All three sit in the deal between the two clubs, not in the player's contract. An add-on is money paid only if something happens, such as a number of games. A sell-on is a share of a future sale. A buy-back lets the selling club buy the player back.

Did a club really ban a player from going into space?

Yes. Sunderland wrote a ban on space travel into Stefan Schwarz's contract in 1999. He says an agent on the deal had offered him a seat on one of the first commercial flights into space, and the club worried he would take it.

What this guide leaves out

These are ten kinds of clause, not every clause in a contract. A club's option to extend a contract, for example, is not covered here. Three lines will date: Manchester City's appeal, which was still open on 14 October 2026; FIFA's player-share rule, which starts on 1 January 2027; and the Premier League's standard contract, which we read in its 2026/27 edition.

Next in the series: the daylight offside trial, explained.

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