In the first Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust meeting following the sale of Gareth Bale in 2013, Daniel Levy confirmed that as far as he was concerned, the partnership between the North Londoners and Real Madrid was no longer active in light of the Spaniard’s use of machiavellian techniques to lure the Welshman away from White Hart Lane.
However, nobody really seemed to know what came out of this ‘special relationship’ other than the departure of two of Spurs’ key assets, Luka Modric and the aforementioned Bale.
Well, following the release of documents surrounding the former Southampton man’s transfer by Football Leaks, more has come to light, and it appears that Spurs did in fact work very closely with the Spanish giants.
The first revolution is that Bale’s transfer really was a world-record fee at approximately €101 million which eclipses the €96 million, Los Blancos paid for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.
This amount has long been disputed with Madrid persistently reiterating that the amount paid to Spurs was actually €91 million.
According to The Telegraph, the Spaniards were so determined to keep the true amount concealed, that there was a clause written into the deal which stipulated that Spurs could not publicly reveal financial information surrounding the transfer.
This is a clear effort on Real’s part to appease the notorious ego of Ronaldo but reading further into the document and a number of curiosities become apparent concerning some of the other dealings the two clubs have done over the years.
The first of which refers to Madrid giving up any claim to “outstanding amounts” owed by Spurs for the transfer of Rafael Van Der Vaart in 2010.
The amount is not specified but it does raise the question of whether the €101 million transfer fee is inflated even further by the abolishment of this payment.
Included in the files is also a reference to a “payment agreement” between the clubs in 2012, four days before the official sale of Modric to the Spanish capital.
This occurred two years after the Van Der Vaart transfer, so the nature and reasoning for the payment is slightly confusing.
Could it be that the two player transfers were linked? If so, why was this? Perhaps it affected the sell-on fee Spurs owed to Modric’s previous club Dinamo Zagreb? There could be a simple and logical explanation for all of this but the timing and subsequent concealment of the payment is very odd indeed.
Neither Real Madrid or Tottenham have commented on the leak as yet and there is no suggestion that either party has done wrong in these specific details.
