Leeds ordered to pay Jean-Kevin Augustin huge compensation fee

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Leeds ordered to pay Jean-Kevin Augustin huge compensation fee

Leeds United have been ordered to pay Jean-Kevin Augustin £24.5m in compensation after being found guilty of breaching his contract.

The 25-year-old, who now plays for Swiss giants Basel, joined the Whites on loan from RB Leipzig in January 2020, in a deal that included an obligation to buy.

Augustin made just three appearances for Leeds, who earned promotion to the Premier League that season under Marcelo Bielsa, but the club failed to activate the buy clause owing to what they claimed to be extenuating circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.

Leeds eventually reached a £15.5m settlement with Leipzig last year, having previously lost their case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

France Under-21 international Augustin then took his own case to FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber citing a breach of contract from Leeds, and The Athletic have revealed that a partial ruling has gone in his favour.

The Premier League strugglers are understood to have appealed against the decision, which equates to the club paying the near £80,000-a-week wages that had been agreed in 2020 in full, for the duration of what would have been a five-year contract.

Augustin, an academy graduate at Paris Saint-Germain, subsequently spent two unsuccessful years in Ligue 1 with Nantes, before joining Basel on a free transfer in the summer of 2022.