Jeremain Lens was announced as a Besiktas player at the weekend as the Turkish club kept with the recent tradition of Twitter reveals and Sunderland later confirmed the move themselves with a short statement on safc.com.
Although that statement gave no further details other than that Lens had completed his move to Besiktas, it was widely thought that the move was a permanent deal with Sky Sports News reporting that an undisclosed fee of around £4.5m had been agreed.
It turns out that reports of a permanent move are wrong, with the Turkish champions releasing the full financial details of the deal to the Turkish stock market, and it turns out that they actually only paid Sunderland a fee of €1.5m to loan the Dutch international for the duration of the 2017-18 season with an option to buy the player for €4,089,000.
The report also details Lens’ salary with Besiktas, revealing that he will be paid a base salary of €2.2m, with a bonus of €4,000 per goal, €100,000 should he play 25+ games, €200,000 if he plays more than 35 games and a €200,000 bonus for Champions League qualification.
Although this means it’s possible that Lens will return next year, Besiktas have already agreed a four-year deal with Lens should they take up the purchase option in his contract, with the details of that future contract also detailed (€2.25m in 18/19, €2.3m in 19/20, €1.95m in 20/21 and €1.8m in 21/22).
Hopefully that means the player won’t return, as despite his obvious talent as a player, he seems to be a lot more trouble than he is worth. Simon Grayson wished the player well earlier today but reiterated that the player wished to leave.
It was made clear from day one that Jeremain wanted to leave. We wish him well in the future and we move on with the present squad we have.
Now that Lens has left the club, albeit only on loan for now, the loan fee and wages off the books should expedite some incoming transfer business, with Jordan Hugill and Ross McCormack being heavily linked.