Coventry City have turned Carl Rushworth's loan from Brighton into a permanent transfer, paying a reported £22.5 million — a club-record fee — to keep the goalkeeper who helped fire them back to the Premier League.

The deal, reported on 29 July by The Athletic and the Coventry Telegraph, smashes the £17 million Coventry paid for Aurele Amenda, their previous record signing (The Athletic). Neither club has confirmed the fee publicly. The length of Rushworth's contract has not been revealed (BBC Sport).

The signing closes a strange loop in Rushworth's career. Brighton signed him from his hometown club, Halifax Town, in 2019. Over seven years on the south coast, he never made a single senior appearance for the Seagulls, instead spending six separate loan spells away from the club (BBC Sport).

The sixth of those loans was the one that stuck. Rushworth started all 46 of Coventry's Championship games last season — the Championship being English football's second tier — and kept 17 clean sheets (meaning the opposition failed to score). That record underpinned Coventry's title win and ended a 25-year wait for top-flight football (BBC Sport).

Manager Frank Lampard, who guided the team to promotion, praised Rushworth as a "top professional" who had a "huge impact" and said it was great to have him back on a permanent basis (BBC Sport).

The timeline had a brief moment of uncertainty. Coventry's official retained list, published on 15 May, listed Rushworth among the loan players returning to their parent clubs — the standard accounting step clubs take at season's end, when borrowed players revert to whoever holds their registration (Coventry City). Two and a half months later, he belongs to Coventry for good.

For a player who never pulled on a Brighton shirt in a competitive match, a £22.5 million price tag tells you everything about how Coventry value what he did last season. The Premier League is unforgiving territory for any newly promoted side, and a goalkeeper who knows the team, the manager and the stadium offers one fewer thing to worry about.

Coventry fans will hope the chemistry Rushworth built with his defenders over 46 games carries straight into the top flight. The alternative — bedding in a new goalkeeper for the club's first Premier League campaign in a quarter-century — would have been a risk Lampard clearly had no appetite for.