- Nottingham Forest profited from the sale of Oliver Burke, while the winger’s career has failed to progress since leaving the club in 2016.
- Despite the outrage from fans, Forest secured a lucrative deal, selling Burke to RB Leipzig for £13 million.
- The sale helped stabilize Forest financially, allowing them to build a successful team and eventually earn promotion to the Premier League in 2022.
Oliver Burke’s sale appears to have benefited Nottingham Forest more than anyone else, as the winger hasn’t shown much since departing the team in 2016.
The Scotland international first joined the team as a young player in 2005 and progressed through the Forest academy before making his team debut in 2014 at the age of 17.
Although the Premier League team clearly came out ahead, given where Burke’s career has gone since leaving the City Ground in 2016, the club’s fan base was outraged by his move to Germany just two years later.
Forest sold Burke while in the EFL in 2016
To the dismay of the club’s supporters, the Reds secured a big-money move for the young player in the summer of 2016, despite the fact that he had hardly played for Forest in the Championship.
In 2016, the winger was sold to RB Leipzig, a German team that paid £13 million for the young Scottish player.
After just 25 league appearances for the Scottish forward, the deal seemed too good to refuse, but the move infuriated the Forest supporters, who were upset that the team was letting go of a homegrown star at the start of his career.
Burke played in the Bundesliga 25 times in his one season in Germany, but only five of those appearances came in the starting lineup.
After being utilised in a number of positions and failing to establish consistency for the East German team, he suffered from a lack of playing time in Germany and eventually returned to England.
Forest have been the real winners from the Burke transfer
Burke was signed by West Bromwich Albion in the summer of 2017, barely a year after joining Leipzig, for an alleged £15 million deal.
He returned to England in order to gain more playing time, but he only made 18 league appearances for his new team before being sent on loan to Celtic in Scotland, where he remained until the end of the 2018–19 campaign.
He became a regular starter after going on another loan to Alaves in La Liga, but his one goal and two assists in 31 games did not win over the Baggies’ management when he returned to the team.
He was traded for Callum Robinson and sent to Sheffield United right away. However, he struggled at Bramall Lane, only managing two goals and one assist in his two seasons there. Burke failed to establish himself as a regular starter forward despite starting 16 league games for the Blades.
Burke’s returns have continued to diminish after subsequent moves to Millwall, Werder Bremen, and Birmingham City, where he is once again relegated to a supporting role. Over his career, he has moved for fees exceeding thirty million pounds, but in 255 games, he has only managed twenty assists and twenty goals. This is a very poor return for a winger.
Burke no longer looks like the multi-million dollar player who once dazzled at the Forest Ground, as he is currently finding it difficult to perform on loan at Birmingham.
It is difficult to argue that Forest did not benefit the most from the transaction, given that they received £13 million from a player who has not performed well since joining the team.
However, Forest was going through a difficult period at the time of the deal, having struggled financially in 2016.
The club’s financial difficulties earlier that year made it difficult for them to pay their employees and players, which is typically a sign that something terrible was going on behind the scenes.
Burke’s £13 million sale brought much-needed funds into the club’s operating budget.
Burke himself claimed in a statement following his departure that the transfer had helped to “stabilise the club,” even though they had not used the majority of the funds on transfers.
Even though it didn’t happen right away, Forest has improved since selling Burke. The transfer fee prevented the club from going bankrupt, which would have happened to previously mismanaged teams like Portsmouth and Derby County. Instead, it allowed the club to keep operating and paying its employees.
With strategic acquisitions paid for by the sales of players like Burke and Britt Assombalonga, they gradually strengthened their roster, which ultimately resulted in their promotion to the Premier League in 2022.
The financial situation at Forest might have been far worse than it turned out to be had Burke not been sold. While it is undeniable that the player and any of his future clubs benefited from the transfer, the club did.
Leave a Reply