Pushing boundaries: How poor Sierra Leonean teenage footballer defied odds, paid $6m to force transfer to Man City in seven days

Pushing boundaries: How poor Sierra Leonean teenage footballer defied odds, paid $6m to force transfer to Man City in seven days

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Within the space of six months, 18-year-old centre-back Juma Bah has gone from playing football in his homeland of Sierra Leone to paying his own €6 million ($6.3 million) release clause in order to unilaterally break his contract with a club in Spain’s La Liga and days later join Premier League champions Manchester City.

And then immediately get sent on loan to Lens, the French club who just sold a 20-year-old centre-back to City for an initial €40 million ($41.7 million) for the rest of the season.

It has been a fraught seven days for Bah’s previous club Real Valladolid, as we will go into in more detail below.

They only made his signing permanent on January 1 having previously had him on loan, and were counting on him as they battle against relegation from Spain’s top flight. If Bah was to leave this month, Valladolid were determined to get more than €6 million ($6.3 million) for him, but to do that they needed him to sign a new contract first (and increase his release clause). The club claim there was a verbal agreement in place since September, shortly after his loan began.

In a lengthy statement on X on Tuesday morning, Bah’s agent said nothing was ever communicated to him or the player after they agreed to that initial proposal, and at no point had they refused to transfer his licence from the Valladolid youth team to the reserve team or first team.

Bah had not been seen by Valladolid since last Tuesday (January 21), which was when City first expressed their interest and also the day he paid up his own release clause with the Spanish football federation (RFEF). Valladolid subsequently released a punchy statement accusing City of “appearing to advise” Bah to “breach his contract” with them. City remained quiet.

At the weekend, when a Bah-less Valladolid were beaten 3-0 at home by Real Madrid, there were protests directed towards their owner, the former Real Madrid and Brazil striker Ronaldo, about his running of the club.

Then on Monday, at 5pm UK time, City announced on their website that they had signed Bah and he was off on loan to Ligue 1 side Lens.

Here’s a run-through of Bah’s background, his time at Valladolid and the controversy of the past seven days…

What is Bah’s story?

Bah’s rise to La Liga was rapid – until last summer, he was playing at club level in his native Sierra Leone.

Born in Freetown, the capital of the West African country, he told Valladolid’s in-house media he would help his father with his work at a bakery by waking at 4am to collect firewood, and that he started out playing football barefoot. He came through the Freetown Giant Academy, before moving to AIK Freetong in 2021-22 and then spending two seasons on loan at top-flight Freetonians SLIFA.

As Bah said in a YouTube interview with Valladolid, their scouting co-ordinator Pachu Martinez went to see him play a league game in Sierra Leone and “believed” in him. Bah joined the Spanish club on loan in August, moving into their academy facilities and making one appearance for their reserve team in a fourth-tier game the following month.

Six days later, he was unexpectedly called up to the senior side to make his La Liga debut against Real Sociedad, with Valladolid short of options in defence due to injuries. He became the first player from Sierra Leone to appear in the Spanish top flight and went on to play 11 more times in La Liga.

“It’s crazy,” the quiet, introverted teenager told the club’s YouTube channel. “I started playing from the streets.

“It was really stressful not having boots to play (when he was younger), but I’m really happy now I’m here… I didn’t expect that I would be in La Liga, to play yesterday (against Real Sociedad). I don’t know how I should express my feelings, I was so emotional yesterday. It was amazing – the best feeling ever.”

What were the terms of his move to Valladolid?

Bah joined Valladolid in August from AIK Freetong on a 12-month loan, with an option to buy for €150,000 ($156,282). His salary at the time was around €2,000 ($2,083) a month, in line with others in their youth setup. If players progress at the club, their salary and release clauses increase.

By September, Valladolid had already decided to make Bah’s move permanent, and the club say an agreement to do so, which included improved terms for the player, was approved by all parties by the middle of that month. At this point, Bah had been training with and playing for their second team. He faced Real Sociedad in his first-team debut on September 21.

He was offered a new contract by the club but that could not be effective until January because that was the earliest point Valladolid could make his loan permanent.

How has he got on at Valladolid?

With just 864 minutes of La Liga football to his name, and having been thrown straight into the division’s leakiest backline at the age of 18, it’s difficult to come away with too many concrete conclusions on Bah’s ability – the levels of his individual performances have often been dictated by the instability across the Valladolid defence as a whole. Some things, however, are immediately obvious.

At 6ft 4in (195cm), he is dominant in the air. His aerial duel success rate of 70.5 per cent is eighth-best among La Liga players with more than 25 duels contested, while only two players across Europe’s top five domestic leagues can better his rate of four headed clearances per game. His biggest test came in November away against Getafe, where he won seven of his 11 aerial contests with some of the division’s most physical battlers, coming away with a burgeoning reputation very much intact.

The battle-hardened Bah also possesses a surprising turn of pace for a defender so commanding. He is comfortable tracking tricky wingers down the channel, making him an intriguing option to play on the outside of a back three as well as in the central duo of a defensive four.

On the ball, there has not been too much opportunity to see Bah’s distribution; Valladolid are not La Liga’s most direct side, but around 18 per cent of their passes from the defensive third this season have been long, showing their desire to avoid a battle for possession if they can help it. Bah has stepped up and fizzed a few nice passes through the lines, but he understandably tends to play things safe with his side in the relegation picture.

Before the developments over the past week, Valladolid fans had been excited by Bah – not just in terms of seeing a highly rated young player in action and what role he might play in helping them try to avoid the drop, but also in terms of how much money he could bring in for them when he did leave for a bigger club.

Valladolid made a massive profit on now Ghana international centre-back Mohammed Salisu when he moved to Southampton of the Premier League for €12.85 million (13.4 million) in 2020, after a little under three years in Spain. Salisu, like Bah, had initially joined Valladolid’s youth setup.

So, what’s happened this month?

On January 1, Valladolid exercised their option to buy Bah and the plan was for both his salary and release-clause value to increase. In the youth setup, his release clause was set at €6 million ($6.3 million), in the second team it would be €12 million ($12.5 million), and in the first team it would be €30 million ($31.25 million).

But despite Bah moving permanently to Valladolid this month, there was no agreement on a new contract, which has meant that, as this winter transfer window continued, his release clause remained at €6 million ($6.3 million).

  • The Athletic report
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