Can we talk about how bad Daniel Levy is for Spurs yet?

Tbf, even pre PL Spurs were considered one of the 'big 5', which was Man United, Liverpool, Everton, Arsenal, Spurs.

True. But even their inclusion back then seems pretty damn arbitrary. Even discounting Premier Leagues and counting only old school Division 1 titles...

Liverpool - 18
Arsenal - 10
Everton - 9
United - 7
Spurs - 2

One of these is not like the others.
 


What a prick, you don't control player's career like that.

Yes, he can. The said player wanted the safety net of a 6 year contract so he should plan to honor it. A contract works both ways. Would Kane be willing to cancel his contract if he suddenly gets injured and unable to play again in his career? Of course, he wouldn't.

I absolutely despise Levy and his fake hard negotiator persona that he tries to build but he isn't in the wrong here. Kane should hope that some club will pay his transfer fee, else he stays where he is.
 
He's dug his heels in over Danny Rose amongst others. Anyone who was expecting him to give Kane a smooth route out was kidding themselves. That includes Kane.
 
End of the day it’s Levy’s job to do right for the club. Kane is the idiot for signing his latest contract extension.

Well, knowing Kane's love for Spurs and uprising stature of the club during Poch's peak tenure, he of course wanted to sign. He would be an idiot if he didn't want to sign his first big contract.

This is about gentleman's agreement between him and Levy about Kane's future. He is a prick if he doesn't want to accept anything other than his "valuation".
 
Well, knowing Kane's love for Spurs and uprising stature of the club during Poch's peak tenure, he of course wanted to sign. He would be an idiot if he didn't want to sign his first big contract.

This is about gentleman's agreement between him and Levy about Kane's future. He is a prick if he doesn't want to accept anything other than his "valuation".

Please don’t make a Gooner defend Daniel Levy...

Kane signed a six-year contract for £200k per week. No one forced him to do it. He (and the whole world) saw how Levy deals with transfers.

A contract works both ways. Imagine Kane got injured (more than he has) or never recaptured the form that won him his pay rise in the first place. Would Levy get to just stop paying him? No. He’d have to honour the contract.

Same issue with Zaba at Palace. You can’t moan about being tied to a club that you willingly tied yourself to in exchange for lots of money.
 
Well, knowing Kane's love for Spurs and uprising stature of the club during Poch's peak tenure, he of course wanted to sign. He would be an idiot if he didn't want to sign his first big contract.

This is about gentleman's agreement between him and Levy about Kane's future. He is a prick if he doesn't want to accept anything other than his "valuation".

if Kane wants to move, the first think he needs to do is call out Levy and tell everyone what this ‘gentleman’s agreement’ is?

the problem with such things is that they are almost always never discussed in detail, and each side will have a different understanding of the agreement.
 
End of the day it’s Levy’s job to do right for the club. Kane is the idiot for signing his latest contract extension.

My thoughts too. If Kane didn’t see his long term future at Spurs then why on Earth did he sign that long term contract when his initial one was due to expire next summer?
 
If Kane's so desperate to leave then surely he hires Zahavi/Mendes/Raiola, no? Look at Messi, he acted like his Barca career is over but then let his unqualified dad and brother to deal with Bartomeu. That's ridiculous, that's just pretending.
 
Please don’t make a Gooner defend Daniel Levy...

Kane signed a six-year contract for £200k per week. No one forced him to do it. He (and the whole world) saw how Levy deals with transfers.

A contract works both ways. Imagine Kane got injured (more than he has) or never recaptured the form that won him his pay rise in the first place. Would Levy get to just stop paying him? No. He’d have to honour the contract.

Same issue with Zaba at Palace. You can’t moan about being tied to a club that you willingly tied yourself to in exchange for lots of money.

Levy/Spurs would have to honour the contract because FIFA says they have too but a player can get out of a contract and Kane should he wish to could do just that indeed he may have already started down that route.

Irrespective we have no idea what Levy did or didn’t agree to in terms of allowing Kane to leave maybe nothing but it’s just as possible that there was or is a verbal agreement in place.

Blatter , and I can’t believe I am mentioning him , talked about how some clubs treat players as slaves by not granting them exits once they asked to leave and ok we all know that at the top players are very well paid but at the end of the day they are employees whose contracts are deemed as being short term meaning clubs effectively have far too much control over the players in that when the club has squeezed the value out of the player or they get injured or whatever the club yes have to pay in line with the contract length there isn’t any recognition of the fact that many players have been at the club for way over the time stated in legislation as being a short term employee .

That said I believe that there is a challenge going through the courts at the moment where a ex contracted footballer is arguing that the fact that his contract was, prior to him reaching mid 30s, renewed for many a year and therefore he is entitled to protection and indeed on going payments in accordance with standard employment regulations.
 
Weirdly enough, the expectations that he fails to meet right now are the proof of his incredible success as a chairman. He's done remarkably well to elevate Spurs on another level without any significant financial backing — as well as building them a great stadium. He has made mistakes (especially with Mourinho) & he wasn't perfect (in an ideal scenario Spurs would've won the Leicester's title & the CL — in that case he would've ended up by far the greatest chairman in their history), but he certainly has been an outstanding figure mostly responsible for Spurs' rise to the almost-top.
 


What a prick, you don't control player's career like that.


Harry Kane commited his career to Tottenham through a professional sports contract.

if Harry wants to go, Tottenham can choose to sell him at market value, or keep him. Kane has a contractual obligation to play for the club.

There is really no problem whatsoever with this stance, it's literally how football contracts run the entire football ecosystem.
 
Levy is building a business. Not a football team. He’s a hateful little shit and Spurs fans treating him like a deity feels like watching the working class vote Tory.

He’ll get the NFL games in, possibly the first overseas NFL franchise. The stadium will make boatloads and they will NEVER be a top club that buys top talent. Their future is 60 games a season, 30 home match days, concerts and American sport.
 
Levy/Spurs would have to honour the contract because FIFA says they have too

FIFA yes. But also basic contract law. Transfer fees are essentially compensation for breaking a contract. The problem with Kane (as well as Zaha and others) is that their value to their clubs isso much higher than market value. Keeping a team in the Premier League or propelling a team to the Champion League can have a £100m+ impact.


a player can get out of a contract and Kane should he wish to could do just that indeed he may have already started down that route.

Players can do this after a certain amount of time into their contract depending on their age. However, it’s never actually been with a high profile. When it comes down to it, none of the big clubs want hand even more power to he players by collapsing the transfer system. It just not worth it - even for someone like Kane.
 
He's their chairman. He also owns 30% of the company that owns 85% of Spurs.

Levy and members of his family own the rest I think. Basically there is only 2 people that can hold Levy to account one is old, lives in the Bahamas and doesn't give a shit and the other is Levy himself.
 
I suppose kane could buy out his contract at this stage via the Webster ruling.

Would be a landmark in football if it happened, but frankly I think football is due for the transfer market to be more rigorously aligned to wages and contract length. At this stage I am not even sure the big clubs would object. They know wages is the true spending and staying power in modern football by now.
 
I suppose kane could buy out his contract at this stage via the Webster ruling.

Would be a landmark in football if it happened, but frankly I think football is due for the transfer market to be more rigorously aligned to wages and contract length. At this stage I am not even sure the big clubs would object. They know wages is the true spending and staying power in modern football by now.

What a prick, you don't control player's career like that.

Ronaldo, Pogba, De Gea, Zaha, Kane, Grealish, Mbappe, Neymar all say hi...

The only way for players to take an element of control back is by running their contracts down, or as B20 says, buying out contracts (never going to happen imo).

I almost guarantee, that despite the constant talk, Grealish, Kane, Mbabbe and Haaland will all stay put this summer because of course clubs aren't going to let them go for lower than market value, and no one will pay that at the moment..

In terms of Levy, surely he's done a decent job? People saying he's got them to far as he can, well that's the problem with having super clubs, and tailored tv deals etc, the top clubs are generally entrenched at the top. For spurs to change, they either need a sugar daddy or everything to click for a few years.

Every other club outside the top 6/7 are praying for buy outs by billionaires to compete, that's how it is.
 
FIFA yes. But also basic contract law. Transfer fees are essentially compensation for breaking a contract. The problem with Kane (as well as Zaha and others) is that their value to their clubs isso much higher than market value. Keeping a team in the Premier League or propelling a team to the Champion League can have a £100m+ impact.

Your right to a degree but as you acknowledge there are provisions for a player to break their contracts and the clubs cannot do anything to stop a highly valued player walking.

Players at PL level are employees albeit well paid ones but I can’t think of any other industry where even at a very junior level such restrictions apply and its pretty obvious clubs at all levels are petrified that one day a court more likely a European one will rule that the transfer fee system is a restraint of trade or contrary to an employees rights or something along those lines.


Players can do this after a certain amount of time into their contract depending on their age. However, it’s never actually been with a high profile. When it comes down to it, none of the big clubs want hand even more power to he players by collapsing the transfer system. It just not worth it - even for someone like Kane.

Players who signed a contract before age 28 can buy themselves out of their contract after 3 years over 28 after 2 years. Players also are able to give notice if they haven’t, as long as they have been fit or not suspended , walk for free if they haven’t played 10% of first team games.

The Webster ruling has been used in a couple of instances but your right no player appears to have left a club siting a Webster but there have been many a rumour that high profile players such as Rooney and Lampard were prepared to exercise their rights under Article 17 if they didn’t get what they were asking for ( bigger/ more lucrative contracts)

In other words the threat to use is often enough to enough to get the player what they want
 
If Spurs has any sense they should have taken the Dortmund model and applied it to the Prem. Levy has too much pride to do that but if Spurs would have cashed in on some of their assets earlier they could have reinvested some massive money into the squad. If that money was spent wisely like at a Leicester or Dortmund they would have made a significantly stronger squad.

Just look at the some of the ‘assets’ they could have cashed in on but didn’t and who are now worth pennies:
- Dele Ali = £60-70 million (now £10-20 mill)
- Alderwiereld = c.£50 mill (now £10 mill if that)
- Moussa Dembele = £60 - £70 mill (ended up walking for basically nothing after he was finished).
There are far more than that too!

Spurs have these delusions that they are a top club but they need to accept they are in the tier below. That arrogant thinking by Levy and some of the fans (cough Glaston) has lead to their downfall now and I can’t see them climbing back into the top 4 easily at all especially when Kane leaves. There’s no shame in selling the odd player at high value and reinvesting.

This never happens.

If you want to win trophies, the bolded will not get you there.
 
This never happens.

If you want to win trophies, the bolded will not get you there.
Well that’s not true. Selling key assets at the correct time is vital for certain clubs to continue performing and having a chance to compete. As I said Spurs wasted the value of many of their best players by holding on. Leicester have sold some good players (I.e Maguire) replaced them, and still managed to win a cup. That’s excellent management from a club who know where they are in the pyramid. Levy has lied to himself and Spurs fans about where they are as a club. They simply cannot hope to compete with the established elite in the market, so you have to be smarter with which players to sell and who to recruit. Spurs made the fatal error of doing neither and standing still.
 
Well that’s not true. Selling key assets at the correct time is vital for certain clubs to continue performing and having a chance to compete. As I said Spurs wasted the value of many of their best players by holding on. Leicester have sold some good players (I.e Maguire) replaced them, and still managed to win a cup. That’s excellent management from a club who know where they are in the pyramid. Levy has lied to himself and Spurs fans about where they are as a club. They simply cannot hope to compete with the established elite in the market, so you have to be smarter with which players to sell and who to recruit. Spurs made the fatal error of doing neither and standing still.

It's very hard to achieve success that way, if I may rephrase. And despite Leicester's success post Ranieri (1 FA Cup), Tottenham made it to a CL final. But for a harsh penalty... who knows? Levy has placed his club in positions to challenge for major trophies across multiple seasons.

For every Leicester, there are hundreds of clubs that have sold their star players and promptly tumbled down the table. And for a club like Tottenham, it would be nearly impossible to replace a transcendental player like Kane, in terms of individual quality. Even if it's used to strengthen the squad, you're only potentially raising the bottom level, and losing an x-factor that makes the difference at the higher levels.

It's no surprise that a thread like this exists on a Man United site. "How dare they not sell their best player to us for a moderate price that will allow us to win the league". For anyone else, the last thing you do is let Kane leave unless a club is willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money.
 
This whole thing of Kane saying there is a "gentleman's agreement" in place is ridiculous.Without documentation it becomes a he said/she said scenario. Levy will say he promised no such thing & to be honest I doubt that he did.
 
It's very hard to achieve success that way, if I may rephrase. And despite Leicester's success post Ranieri (1 FA Cup), Tottenham made it to a CL final. But for a harsh penalty... who knows? Levy has placed his club in positions to challenge for major trophies across multiple seasons.

For every Leicester, there are hundreds of clubs that have sold their star players and promptly tumbled down the table. And for a club like Tottenham, it would be nearly impossible to replace a transcendental player like Kane, in terms of individual quality. Even if it's used to strengthen the squad, you're only potentially raising the bottom level, and losing an x-factor that makes the difference at the higher levels.

It's no surprise that a thread like this exists on a Man United site. "How dare they not sell their best player to us for a moderate price that will allow us to win the league". For anyone else, the last thing you do is let Kane leave unless a club is willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money.
For what it’s worth I haven’t mentioned Kane and they are right to keep hold of players like him when they get the chance. Others though such as Alli or Dembele could have been sold when they were near peak value and wouldn’t have been irreplaceable.
 
For what it’s worth I haven’t mentioned Kane and they are right to keep hold of players like him when they get the chance. Others though such as Alli or Dembele could have been sold when they were near peak value and wouldn’t have been irreplaceable.
In all fairness with someone like Alli, you would have to be Nostradamus to know when he was at his most valuable. He looked like he had the world at his feet and would get better and better.

The biggest mistakes were not getting rid of the likes of Rose, and the centre backs when they were in demand. Given their age, most people could see when they should have cashed in.
 
He's been pretty terrible at spending money tbh. Turning their nose up at 35m or whatever it was for Grealish but spending 30 on sisokko. They've bought lots of full backs, back up strikers, wingers and midfielders who haven't offered all that much.
 
He's been pretty terrible at spending money tbh. Turning their nose up at 35m or whatever it was for Grealish but spending 30 on sisokko. They've bought lots of full backs, back up strikers, wingers and midfielders who haven't offered all that much.
He buys exactly what his managers want. Compare that to a Woodward.

Besides, he as right about Greaslish's price at the time. It was way over priced. Hate Sissoko all you want. He was what exact value to Newcastle. He also hasn't been any where near useless for Spurs so cant count as wasted money
 
For what it’s worth I haven’t mentioned Kane and they are right to keep hold of players like him when they get the chance. Others though such as Alli or Dembele could have been sold when they were near peak value and wouldn’t have been irreplaceable.

That is fair. Although it's becoming harder to get those kind of players at a discount. Other clubs in England and in Europe are happy to add on the PL tax. Let's say you sold Alli at 50M when he was performing well. Would you be able to plow those earnings/wages into 1 or more players such that you ended up better off? Not impossible (see Liverpool and Coutinho) but very difficult.
 
He buys exactly what his managers want. Compare that to a Woodward.

Besides, he as right about Greaslish's price at the time. It was way over priced. Hate Sissoko all you want. He was what exact value to Newcastle. He also hasn't been any where near useless for Spurs so cant count as wasted money
I think woodward probably buys exactly what his managers want also.
I'm pretty sure i rate sissoko lower than most but even at his best he's a midtable player and it was relatively obvious. Adding grealish could've given them one more Son level player to push them to a level where theres an achievement to respect. As opposed to going from a 6-8th team to a 4-6th team for a few years and back again.
I'm nitpicking mostly, i think he's a good chairman, that'd be an area (more so than selling players) i think hes a bit weak.