But if you make an official enquiry and there is a release clause related to a specific player, they're then legally compelled to reveal that, right?I won’t pretend to be an expert in footballing contract law, but there is a commercial reason for keeping a clause confidential.
If you genuinely want to keep the player and fend off any and every approach, you can add all sorts of conditions alongside the basic monetary requirement, so as to frustrate and delay the negotiation process.
It’s a contractual tactic to obfuscate.
Surely.
Otherwise what's the point.
Or am I missing something else?
Can't imaging inserting such a measure if there's no mechanism available for any other club to discover it.

oooh, a potential hitch!
did you naive fools thinking this would be straightforward??