The loan market can give clubs the chance to try before they buy a player – or realise they don’t want to after all.
A loan with an option to buy is a common formula for transfers, which Roma have used to good effect in some cases and less so in others.
Roma have just negotiated their highest ever option to buy for their latest loan signing, but as that spell begins and before any clarity comes over whether it will be activated next year, which other arrangements has it overcome?
Ranked in ascending order and not including any deals that were an obligation to buy instead, here are the 10 highest option to buy fees Roma have ever signed up for.
10. Stephan El Shaarawy – €13m
Roma brought El Shaarawy back to Italian football in January 2016 after his previous loan spell at Monaco from AC Milan. Hoping he could rekindle his potential, Roma paid €1.4m for the loan deal and secured an option to buy him for €13m.
El Shaarawy soon made that fee look like a bargain. With 8 goals from 18 games during his loan spell, he became a big part of Roma’s revival under Luciano Spalletti.
After Roma paid the necessary €13m, El Shaarawy spent the next three seasons in the capital before an 18-month sojourn with Shanghai Shenhua, after which he has served Roma again over a longer second spell.
9. Sérgio Oliveira – €13.5m
Midfield was the first position José Mourinho wanted to strengthen in his Roma squad, but the club couldn’t gift him anyone new there in the first transfer window since his appointment in May 2021.
That was rectified in January 2022, when Oliveira became a reinforcement for Roma’s midfield via a loan deal from Porto.
The Portuguese player helped Roma win the Europa Conference League, registering 3 goals from 22 appearances while on loan. It was a decent spell, but not strong enough to tempt Roma into paying €13.5m for him.
It showed as well with his next move, since Galatasaray bought him for just €3m that summer.
8. Renato Sanches – €15m
A year after taking Georginio Wijnaldum on loan from Paris Saint-Germain – with a seven-figure option to buy that was neglected – Roma returned to the same source to take Sanches on a season-long deal.
While Wijnaldum’s loan spell had been ruined by one serious injury, Sanches suffered from a series of different setbacks and never lasted more than 45 minutes in a Serie A game.
Roma’s €15m option to buy Sanches, on top of the €1m loan fee they paid PSG, would have become an obligation if he played in 60% of their matches in the 2023-24 season, but he only played in 22%, so the permanent move was avoided.
7. Mohamed Salah – €15m
One of Roma’s biggest success stories from the loan market, Salah had just spent six months as a temporary Fiorentina player when Walter Sabatini snuck in to secure his signature from Chelsea.
Roma paid Chelsea €5m for the loan deal and agreed a €15m option to buy him after the 2015-16 season.
Salah scored 15 goals during that campaign, so it was a simple decision for Roma to complete his permanent purchase.
The Egyptian forward stayed for one more season, enjoying a prolific partnership with Edin Džeko – who had also seen an initial loan move to Roma become permanent – and scoring 19 more goals.
Roma more than doubled their money when selling Salah to Liverpool in the summer of 2017 for €42m, rising to €50m. How they reinvested those funds, it would be best to skip over, but Salah has become a Premier League legend in the years since, with considerably more goals for Liverpool than any other former Roma player at their next club.
6. Lucas Digne – €16m
Roma reunited Digne with his former Lille coach Rudi Garcia for the 2015-16 season as the left-back sought a new challenge away from PSG. Needing replacements for Ashley Cole and José Holebas, Roma paid €2.5m to take Digne on loan and secured the chance to keep him for a reported further €16m.
He made a positive impression during his sole season in Italy, with 42 appearances and 3 goals. However, Garcia’s replacement Spalletti started to show more faith towards Emerson Palmieri by the closing weeks of the season.
Thus, Roma let Digne go and he went on to complete a big next move, signing for Barcelona instead at a cost of €16.5m.
5. Wojciech Szczęsny – €16m
Szczęsny’s performances on loan at Roma from Arsenal in the 2015-16 season earned him a second campaign with the club. Roma renewed his loan and this time arranged a €16m option to buy.
The Polish goalkeeper was ever-present in the 2016-17 Serie A season, keeping 14 clean sheets, which was the best tally in the league.
However, rather than staying with Roma, Szczęsny was bought by Serie A rivals Juventus that summer for €12.2m up front.
Roma replaced him from within, promoting Alisson Becker to the starting role and seeing the Brazilian blossom into a €62.5m asset.
4. Diego Llorente – €18m
Barely a month after signing a new contract with Leeds United, Llorente embarked on a surprise loan move to Roma in January 2023.
After reuniting with Mourinho, who had given him his senior debut for Real Madrid before, the Spaniard surpassed expectations, even making a substitute appearance in the gut-wrenching 2023 Europa League final.
But Leeds’ attempt at getting their money back for Llorente still seemed ambitious and Roma ultimately took advantage of their relegation from the Premier League to renew his loan deal for another season.
This time around, Leeds set a price of €5m for Llorente’s permanent signature, but despite his 41 appearances in the 2023-24 season, Roma still overlooked a permanent deal for the defender.
Leeds ended up selling him to Real Betis for the relative bargain of a reported €3.25m.
3. Lucas Gourna-Douath – €18m
Roma were working around the clock on deadline day in February 2025, with Gourna-Douath one of three late additions to Claudio Ranieri’s squad.
The midfielder came from Red Bull Salzburg after a transfer pursuit that had been kept completely under wraps until the day Roma completed the signing.
Gourna-Douath only made six appearances on loan, doing enough to make Roma think about keeping him on different terms but not enough to convince them to fork out €18m.
2. Borja Mayoral – €20m
Roma signed Mayoral on a two-year loan from Real Madrid in 2020, with a differing structure for their option to buy the striker.
If Roma wanted to buy him after the first season of the loan, the option would be €15m. If they wanted to buy him after the second, it would be €20m.
Mayoral scored a notable 17 goals in his first season under Paulo Fonseca, but changes to Roma’s attack ahead of the Mourinho era prompted them to pause any pursuit of a permanent arrangement in favour of allowing the loan deal to enter its second year.
Ultimately, Mayoral only scored once for Mourinho and was allowed to end his second season on loan at Roma six months early to return to his native Spain with Getafe, who paid Real Madrid €10m for the privilege.
1. Evan Ferguson – €38m
Brighton once rated Evan Ferguson in the £100m bracket, more in acknowledgment of his potential than his record so far as a youngster.
His comeback from injury in the 2024-25 season was challenging, though; the Irish striker scored just one goal before heading out on loan to West Ham, where he never got off the mark.
There was no option for West Ham to buy Ferguson, but for his next challenge in Italy with Roma, a view to a permanent deal has been pencilled into the agreement.
Roma are reportedly paying €3m to take Ferguson on loan, after which they will have an option to buy him for €38m, which would be the third highest transfer fee overall in their history.
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