Sam Klein. Brisbane to the Bundesliga. And the part nobody talks about.

Good morning,

"It's taken me a few days to dwell on things..."

That is how Sam Klein opened his goodbye to Brisbane Roar this week.

Gympie kid. Through the Football Queensland pathway. Brief stint in Scandinavia. Back to the Gold Coast Knights in the NPL. Brought back into the Roar via the B Team. Then 19 appearances and 5 goals in 2024/25. Then 25 appearances and 4 goals in 2025/26.

Now signed for FC St. Pauli in the Bundesliga.

Significant transfer fee. Sell-on clause. Top-five league globally. The kind of move every young Queensland footballer pictures when they kick a ball in their backyard.

Massive congratulations to Sam, his family, and to the Roar for backing him.

It is a fantastic story.

Here is the part nobody talks about in the celebration photos.

The contract is signed. The shirt is held up. The flight is booked. And then a 22-year-old lands in Hamburg with a Euro contract, an Australian bank account, family back in Gympie, and roughly forty-seven things on his to-do list before training starts.

Banking. Tax in two countries. Visa paperwork. Apartment. Language. Food. The cultural side of a city he has never lived in. Currency.

I have asked seventeen overseas athletes on the podcast what they wish they had known before they got on the plane. Cam Watson, who played in Portugal, Holland, India, and Indonesia, said it most cleanly:

"I had no idea about any of that stuff back then."

Cam was talking about Tax. Banking. Sending money home. The mechanics of being paid in one currency while your life sits in another. None of it gets explained in the deal-signing meeting.

This is not about Sam. He has good people around him. The point is the next ten Sam Kleins reading this newsletter who are six months out from the same moment, and the things their agents and clubs are not built to walk them through.

That is exactly why we built The Overseas Athlete.

Eighteen episodes already in the back catalogue. New episodes drop from May 24th. Listen here.

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Let's run a hypothetical to make this concrete.

Assume a young Australian signs a three-year deal in the Bundesliga at €500,000 per year. €1.5 million across the contract. Headline number that looks great in the announcement.

Today's rate. EUR/AUD around 1.62. That €1.5 million is worth roughly A$2,430,000 at today's rate.

Five weeks ago it was 1.68. That same €1.5 million was worth A$2,520,000. A$90,000 of value, gone in 35 days.

Now look at the trend. Over the last 12 months, the Australian dollar has gained roughly 9% against the Euro. Yesterday's USD/AUD piece showed the same pattern playing out across the dollar. AUD at a four-year high, potentially heading toward 0.75 by year-end. The macro picture says the AUD has further to run.

If EUR/AUD drops to 1.50 over the contract, a similar move to what we have already seen that same €1.5 million is now worth A$2,250,000.

That is A$210,000 of value disappearing across three years. Not because anything in the contract changed. Because the exchange rate moved while the contract sat unhedged.

This is exactly when a forward contract earns its keep. The day after you sign is the moment you have the most leverage and the least exposure. Lock in today's rate. Protect the AUD value of the deal you actually negotiated. The contract you signed stays the contract you get paid on.

This is not advice for Sam. We do not know his deal, his structure, or what his team has already put in place. But it is the conversation every Australian athlete with a Euro contract should be having the day after they sign.

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If you missed it, the AUD just hit its highest level against the USD in four years. The structural picture, what is driving it, and what it means for athletes paid in USD.

Read the full breakdown here.

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Cindy and I played our first padel competition on the weekend.

New sport. New country. Same competitive streak that got me into football in the first place. We did not win, but we did not embarrass ourselves either. There is a long line of Hua Hin locals who have been at this longer than us, and I now respect every one of them.

Five hours of padel in the Thailand heat. The recovery the next morning was real.

Speaking of recovery. I've just signed on as an affiliate of Recover Asia. They are doing recovery properly for this region. Cold plunges, saunas, compression boots. And they ship across Asia without the usual import nightmare. I would not put it here if I did not back it.

Check out their store here: Recover Asia

If you have just signed an overseas deal, are about to, or know someone who has, the FX conversation is worth having before the first paycheck lands, not after.

Click here for a free quote or consultation.

Or book a 30-minute call here.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

* Hypothetical contract figures used for illustration only. We have no knowledge of Sam Klein's actual contract terms, structure, or financial arrangements with FC St. Pauli.