Bristol City Eyes Cash Boost from Alex Scott's Future Sale
Bristol City could be in line for a major cash boost if AFC Bournemouth eventually cash in on Alex Scott – and owner Steve Lansdown is banking on exactly that.
Scott, plucked from non-league Guernsey FC in December 2019 and sold to Bournemouth for about £25m three-and-a-half years later, has quickly become one of the most coveted young midfielders in the Premier League. The England Under-21 international has drawn admiring glances from Chelsea and Arsenal, with Bournemouth rejecting a £64m offer from Chelsea last month.
The Cherries insist Scott, tied down until 2028, is not for sale. He has already turned down a new contract, though, and the market is circling. Bristol City are watching closely.
“We would never let a player depart without having a sell-on clause,” Lansdown told BBC Guernsey. He pointed to recent precedent. “We had one with Antoine Semenyo, who also went to Bournemouth and has now gone to Manchester City.
“So we'll be hopeful that Alex will be sold by Bournemouth at some point in the future because we will then get a share of some of the proceeds.”
That is the business model in a sentence. Identify, develop, sell – and keep a stake in the upside.
“You take a player on, you invest in their future, their training, their medicals and all the other aspects, and you want them to play for you,” Lansdown said. “And if they can't play for you and you can move them on to somewhere else, you hopefully get a fee, an ongoing fee, if they go to a bigger club again.”
Lansdown will not reveal the exact sell-on percentage written into Scott’s move to Bournemouth. The principle is clear enough. Sell-on clauses are typically a slice of the profit a club makes on a player. If, for example, City held a 20% sell-on and Bournemouth hit their reported £80m valuation, the Championship side could bank around £11m.
For a club chasing the Championship play-offs, that sort of money changes the landscape. It strengthens a squad. It underpins wage bills. It gives a promotion push real oxygen.
Lansdown’s long game
Lansdown, who built his wealth by founding the finance firm Hargreaves Lansdown, has been playing the long game in Bristol for more than two decades. He became Bristol City chairman in 2002 after already establishing himself as majority shareholder, then took control of Bristol Rugby in 2012 having funded them for years. Both clubs now sit under the Bristol Sport umbrella and share Ashton Gate.
The next step, in his eyes, requires fresh money.
“I've made it perfectly clear that I've been looking for investment into Bristol City to go either alongside me or basically take me out of it at some point in the future,” he said. “We're not at that point yet, but we're looking, we're talking to people and we'll see where it leads us.
“But it's a big business football and if we want to be at the top of the game we need to have that investment.”
That tension between ambition and sustainability runs through every sentence. The stands want signings. The balance sheet demands restraint.
“Obviously, your supporter base wants you to spend money and wants you to be successful, that's the outside pressures,” Lansdown said. “The inside pressures are keeping a balanced budget as much as you possibly can.
“You can't really do that without injecting capital in there, so the amount of capital you put in there dictates how well you do.
“So the more people who get to invest into the club, and that's why I'm saying we're looking for new investment, the better chances you have of being successful.”
For Bristol City, the equation is stark. Promotion dreams rest not only on results at Ashton Gate, but on decisions made in boardrooms on the south coast. If Bournemouth ever decide the time is right to cash in on Alex Scott, the ripple could be felt all the way back in BS3.
