Barnsley land £7m bonus as John Stones makes £47.5m move

The England international completed his big-money move from Goodison yesterday, with the Reds benefitting from a 15 per cent sell-on clause inserted into the deal for any profit on a future transfer following Stones’s £2.25m move to Merseyside in January 2013, The Yorkshire Post understands.

The profit from Stones’s sale to City is £45.25m, meaning that Barnsley are entitled to around £6.78m through their sell-on clause – comfortably eclipsing the previous club record fee that they received when Ashley Ward moved to Blackburn Rovers for £4.5m in December 1998.

Despite the bumper amount that the Reds will receive following the move of Stones to City, the club are unlikely to deviate from their declared transfer strategy of recruiting emerging young talent under the age of 24 – and selling the best on for large fees at the appropriate time to enable the club to remain fiscally sound.

A spending spree is not in the equation, with owner Patrick Cryne having publicly spoken about the need for Barnsley to operate as a self-sustainable business in future with the emphasis being on developing players following their elevation back to the Championship.

City’s purchase of Stones, who has signed a six-year deal, makes the young centre-half the world’s second most expensive defender behind David Luiz – who joined Paris St-Germain from Chelsea for £50m in 2014.

On his move, the Penistone-born player, who only made his full competitive debut for Barnsley four years ago tomorrow, said: “It’s an ambitious club with a great manager (Pep Guardiola), so I cannot wait to get stuck in. I know it will be tough getting a place in this team, but I am determined to become the best player I can be and help us to success.”

Barnsley did not insert a clause into the Stones deal entitling them to any additional fee should the defender make his England debut, which arrived in May 2014.