Aston Villa reach buyout agreement with outcast forward Ross McCormack

Say goodbye to forward Ross McCormack, whose final year at Aston Villa was bought-out. The two sides were able to reach an amicable agreement.

In what was supposed to be Ross McCormack’s final year with the claret and blue, well, won’t actually be happening.

Aston Villa on Monday announced a ‘variation agreement’ was reached with the outcast forward. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

What is a variation agreement, you might ask? Basically, it’s a deal between at least two parties to make change upon an original signed document. Here’s the LexisNexis definition:

"This is a Precedent variation agreement between two parties, used to document changes to an original contract between the same parties. This variation agreement assumes that consideration is present and it is therefore executed as a simple contract rather than a deed. Optional drafting is provided in this variation agreement for any consent which may be required to be given to the variation by a guarantor."

We may never know what the deal made was, but I can hypothesize to the best of my abilities: Villa reached out to McCormack’s representatives and offered to pay Ross ~70% (could be any number, really) of his yearly salary up front. In a way, both sides come out “ahead.”

Villa got rid of a player they no longer were interested in keeping around at a small discount. Morevover, McCormack and his team become open to pursue new opportunities elsewhere.

I suppose we’ll never know who was truly in the wrong during gate-gate scandal (I think that’s what we’ll call it?). In any case, McCormack departs with three goals in 24 appearances after a £12 million move from Fulham in 2016. Half-a-million per appearance – crazy isn’t it? All the best to Ross in his future endeavors. The former Scotland international scored once in nine appearances during two separates loan spells this year.

UTV.