As noted by the BBC and reported by various sources, including The72, Bristol City stand on the verge of signing Brentford striker Andre Gray in what would represent a club-record fee of £9m. Sitting bottom of the table after three Championship games, the Robins could obviously do with the firepower that Gray could provide to shoot them up the Championship table. However, the transfer of the Brentford star to the Robins will also benefit his former club, Luton Town, who had a sell-on clause inserted into the deal that took him to Brentford last summer.
Brentford signed Gray on the back of a prolific Conference season where the former Hinckley United frontman ended as the league top-scorer, netting 30 goals for the Hatters. Gray eventually signed for Brentford on a three-year deal with then-Brentford manager Mark Warburton lauding Gray’s qualities, saying at the time,
“Andre has tremendous pace, good movement and a clear eye for goal…We have no doubts he will make a very positive impact at Championship level.” Mark Warburton – BBC Sport, July 27, 2014
What followed was Gray scoring 17 goals in the Championship, thus backing up the words of Mark Warburton that he’d [Gray] would make a ‘very positive impact’. This ‘impact’ has driven Bristol City to launch the audacious £9m bid for his services that could very well, according to BBC Sport, allow former club Luton Town to receive what they [BBC Sport] term a ‘seven-figure sum’. Whilst the exact size of the sell-on clause is unknown, the Bedfordshire on Sunday says, “It is thought that they [sic] exact slice will be 20 per cent”; this would mean that Luton Town would be looking at a substantial windfall of £1.8m should the transfer deal go through.
With news of this potential £1.8m windfall from Gray’s proposed £9m move, Hatters club captain, Steve McNulty, said,