Wolfsburg Guarantee Starting Minutes for Divock Origi

Sending Divock Origi out on loan was probably necessary for the player’s development given the 22-year-old striker appeared to have fallen to fourth on the depth chart at Liverpool. Talent and promise is one thing, but more than anything, now, Origi needs to play; he needs minutes.

Heading off to Wolfsburg for the season will get him those minutes—and, it has been revealed by Bild today, if it doesn’t get him those minutes it will get Liverpool more money. That’s because the loan deal includes penalty clauses in case Origi, if fit, doesn’t play enough for Wolfsburg.

There had been talk before he left that one of the conditions of Origi heading out on loan would be a need for the striker to play. That clubs would have to promise a major role for Origi in order to land him. It now appears that any demands by Liverpool went beyond a simple promise of minutes.

And that’s in addition to the base £6M loan fee, a figure almost as shocking as some of the transfer fees paid over the summer. Normally such a high loan fee would only exist if there was a discounted purchase option at the end of it, but in this case there is none—it’s just a loan.

Liverpool also have the option of recalling the player in January, in which case Wolfsburg will not pay the second half of the loan fee—due in two instalments of £3M and with the first half already paid—and the player will return to Anfield for the second half of the 2017-18 season.

It already looked a fantastic deal—for both Liverpool and Origi. Today, somehow, it looks an even better one.