Bristol Rovers get £125,000 as Sinclair plays again for Chelsea
The Stamford Bridge boss gave former Pirates starlet Scott Sinclair his 10th outing for the Premier League club in their 4-0 Carling Cup win over Portsmouth in midweek.
And that triggered a clause in the deal that took the 19-year-old to the London giants, meaning a further six-figure payment for the Pirates.
In all, it takes the money Rovers have earned from the former Bath schoolboy, who came up through their youth ranks, to approaching the £500,000 mark. Chelsea paid around £200,000 up front in compensation when they signed Sinclair in March 2006.
He made his Rovers debut as a 15-year-old when he came off the bench against Leyton Orient, but had only two tastes of first-team action with the Pirates before his move to the capital.
Rovers received a further £50,000 when he made his debut and are entitled to a further £125,000 for every 10 further first-team appearances he makes for Chelsea, up to a maximum of 40.
The Pirates would also be entitled to 15 per cent of any profit Chelsea make on the players should they sell him.
Meanwhile, Rovers are hoping they will be able to move to their new training base at the South Bristol Sports Centre some time next month.
The Pirates confirmed over the summer that they plan to quit their current home at an Army base in Colerne for the former Imperial Sports Ground site in Knowle this autumn.
Rovers chairman Nick Higgs said: "We are looking forward to moving to the new facilities. We have been having weekly meetings with them and our groundsman Pete Prior has been up there to check things out. Everything is nearly ready for us.
"There are currently a few jobs that are due to be completed by the end of this month, and we are planning to move there sometime in October."
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