Brighton agree club-record £46m deal for Tottenham defender Luka Vuskovic

Brighton have agreed to make Luka Vuskovic their club-record signing, with Tottenham accepting a package worth about £50m that includes £46m up front and £4m in very achievable add-ons. The deal also carries a 20-per-cent sell-on clause and matching rights, underlining how strongly Brighton value a defender who is still only 19 and is already with Croatia at the 2026 World Cup.

The fee is a sharp step up from Brighton’s previous offer of £45m including add-ons, which Tottenham turned down before taking the improved bid. It also marks a more aggressive move from a club long associated with identifying undervalued talent and flipping it at a profit. In Vuskovic, Brighton are paying near-elite money for age, ceiling and resale logic at once, rather than waiting for a player to become affordable in the market.

That calculation is easier to understand once Vuskovic’s rapid rise is laid out. Tottenham say he joined the club in July 2025 after the transfer had been agreed in 2023, then spent the 2025/26 campaign on loan at Hamburg SV. Spurs also say he made his senior Croatia debut in June 2025 in a World Cup qualifier against Czechia, became the youngest player to feature in the Croatian top flight for Hajduk Split, and later became Hajduk’s youngest-ever goalscorer before spells with Radomiak Radom, Westerlo and Hamburg.

Brighton’s willingness to break their own record comes with a recent benchmark attached. Their previous club-record fee was João Pedro, whom the club described as its club-record signing after his move from Watford in 2023. Brighton said João Pedro scored 20 goals in his first season, including six in six Europa League appearances, the kind of return that has helped establish the club’s faith in expensive but young talent when the profile is right.

The move is also part of a brisk summer exchange between the clubs. Tottenham completed a £52m deal for Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton in June, leaving the two Premier League sides to trade heavily in the same window. Sky Sports has said Vuskovic was behind Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Marcos Senesi in Tottenham’s centre-back pecking order, while FIFA described him as one of Europe’s most promising young defenders when naming him in Croatia’s World Cup squad alongside Luka Modric, Ivan Perisic and Josko Gvardiol.