Unveiling The 5 Most Unconventional Contract Clauses Ever in Sports History

The contents of sports contracts, like every other contract, are typically, boring, lengthy, and filled with loads of legal jargon.

However, every once in a while, there’s an uncharacteristic add-on to a contract.

Sports contracts are filled with examples of these strange cases. Sometimes it’s a bizarre performance bonus that only pays out in strange circumstances. Other times it’s the banning of certain off-field behaviours. In others, it could take the form of oddly specific stipends.

Nevertheless, the strangest clauses, bonuses, and stipends have revealed that the business of sports contracts can be a weird one.

In this piece, Sports Brief takes a look at the more outlandish, bizarre, and crazy clauses that sports stars either demanded or were assigned by their teams.

Giuseppe Reina - Yearly housing clauses

First, it should be reiterated that the importance of having a lawyer cannot be overemphasised. Especially considering the fact no human is capable of navigating all of the opaque languages that make up contract law.

The deal involving German forward, Guiseppe Reina and the contract he signed with Arminia Bielefeld back in 1996 serves as a prime example of how seemingly unclear these terms can appear.

Reina was clearly interested in living the high life, so he insisted that the contract include a language requiring the team to build him a new house each and every season.

The club agreed to his demands, but made sure to take Reina at face value, as he never specified the size or type of property he wanted every season. Arminia Bielefeld kept up its end by building him a house each year out of Legos throughout the four-year stay of the German forward.

Rollie Fingers - Moustache growth clause

Oakland Athletic's owner, Charlie Finley was a consummate promoter, pulling off weird stunts and sometimes incomprehensible acts, such as implementing a mechanical rabbit to pop up and deliver new baseballs to the home-plate umpire, and introducing orange baseballs into a few exhibition games.

One of Finley's most memorable stunts occurred in the 1972 season when he offered a cash reward to any of his players who could grow a moustache by Father's Day. One of Oakland A's pitchers, Rollie Fingers, was up to the task and grew his trademark curly moustache that he maintains to this day.

Fingers was an excellent relief pitcher in the 1970s, racking up nearly 350 saves. The moustache, which would eventually become a trademark and a fan favourite, saw Fingers’ next contract in 1973 include a $300 bonus for growing a moustache and an extra $100 for the purchase of moustache wax.

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Football

Spencer Prior - Sheep balls clause

This has to go down as the most ridiculous contract clause of all time. In 2001, Cardiff City F.C. signed defender Spencer Prior on a three-year contract worth 700,000 pounds. Nobody will ever know why the following clause was included in the contract by Cardiff City owner, Sam Hammam.

In order to sign the contract with Cardiff City, Prior had to agree to eat sheep's testicles – a delicacy in Hamman's homeland Lebanon.

Prior actually did have to eat sheep's testicles. Apparently, it was a tradition for players on the team and was thought to bring them good luck. Cardiff City manager, Alan Cork, as quoted by Bleacher Report, said:

Prior agreed to eat the balls, as long as they were cooked with lemon, salt, and parsley.

Rolf-Christel Guie-Mien - Cooking class clause

Expectedly, footballers are fond of looking out for their family's best interests when signing a new deal with a club, but Guie-Mien took it one step further.

The Congolese international instructed Eintracht Frankfurt to arrange cooking classes for his wife as part of his deal to join them in 1999.

The midfielder was insistent that his other half’s improved culinary skills would help him settle into German football better.

Thankfully his wife did not find it offensive and took the classes well and learnt about some exquisite dishes that she probably wouldn’t have dreamt of.

Luis Suarez - Non-biting clause

The mercurial Uruguayan's past behaviour caused Barcelona to add in a ‘no biting’ clause when they agreed to a £64.98m deal to sign the striker from Liverpool in the summer of 2014.

Suarez, as reported by ESPN, was already banned when he arrived at the Blaugrana for taking a chomp out of Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup group stage clash against Italy.

The clause appeared a necessity given that Suarez had previously bitten PSV Eindhoven star Otman Bakkal and Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic during his time at Ajax and Liverpool respectively.

Former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu denied the existence of a clause at the time but he has since been accused of lying about the club's financial state by his successor Joan Laporta.

Free agents on the move

Earlier, Sports Brief reported that players throughout the world of football will leave their clubs officially, with the 30th June contract expiry date leaving many of them as free agents.

It remains to be seen where these players will pitch their tents and what kind of contracts they append their signatures to.