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The Premier League have confirmed that the summer transfer window in England will open on Wednesday June 9 and close at 11pm on Tuesday August 31.
If things go to form, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy will strike a deal to sell Harry Kane to Manchester City at 10.59pm on the final day and people will smile admiringly and nod knowingly and trot out the usual platitudes about how Daniel’s a nightmare to deal with but he drives the hardest bargain in football.
And they will point to Spurs’ magnificent new stadium and say that it was built on the back of Levy’s business acumen and they will be absolutely right. Others will point to Spurs’ empty trophy cabinet and say that was built on the back of Levy’s business acumen, too. And they will be right as well.
Levy almost always gets the best deal but the irony is that it almost always comes at a heavy cost.
Tottenham must sell Man City and Man United target Harry Kane this summer as they raise funds for a rebuild that only selling their star striker to a Premier League rival can generate
Daniel Levy (right) has long made it an arduous process for Tottenham’s best players to leave
Getting the best deal is easier when you have a strong hand. Levy has often had that luxury in the past. Not any more. Not this time. Spurs are skint and, more to the point, everyone knows they are skint.
Kane is their most valuable player and, yes, he is in the middle of a six-year-contract that binds him to Spurs until 2024. But he turns 28 this summer and he is a depreciating asset. And everyone knows he is a depreciating asset.
If Spurs are going to sell him, they have to sell him now because his value is only going to go down. It will diminish with his age and it will diminish as English football comes to terms with the fact that the madness of its transfer spending and wage inflation has a limited shelf life.
The reality, however much Levy may try to disguise it, is that Spurs need to sell Kane and they need to sell him now.
Maybe that was why there was more than one Harry dropping truth bombs last week.
Even if Kane’s assertion that it would be him who decided his future, not Levy, drew sharp intakes of breath from those with experience of the Spurs chairman’s control issues, the reality is that, as the club contemplate the repayment schedules on their stadium and Government loans, Levy has limited room for manoeuvre this summer.
The pandemic and the Big Six’s catastrophic misjudgment about the European Super League mean this is a new world for men like Levy.
Levy has worn Sir Alex Ferguson’s ‘worse than a hip replacement’ jibe as a badge of honour for many years but he doesn’t need to continue to drag out negotiations to satisfy his own ego
Kane is yet to win a major trophy despite coming close in the 2019 Champions League final
He has been weakened by loss of revenue, weakened by the vanity signing of Jose Mourinho that took the club backwards on the field, weakened by failure to qualify for the Champions League, weakened by the ESL disaster. A reckoning is coming for him and other leading club owners.
Levy’s own stock is low and getting lower. Last week, he was subjected to a fresh round of criticism because when Spurs fans returned to the stadium for the first time in 14 months to watch their side lose 2-1 at home to Aston Villa, the club stuck them in the upper tier and kept sponsorship banners in the lower tier. It was not a good look.
So Levy may well be furious about Kane’s impertinence, he may well be annoyed by the fact that he chose to go public, in his interview with Gary Neville, about his desire to force a move away in the pursuit of honours that Tottenham cannot offer him and he may be affronted by Kane’s assumption that he is the alpha in the upcoming negotiation. But who cares? Apart from Levy, who really cares?
This should not be about anyone’s ego. This should not be about making City or Manchester United or Chelsea or any other suitor sweat until the last day of August on a point of principle and to burnish his own reputation as some sort of Wall Street ballbreaker.
Kane has 31 goals for Tottenham this season but Spurs are in seventh place in the league
When fans returned to the stands last week they voiced their anger at Levy and his stock is continuing to depreciate among supporters following on from the Super League fiasco
It is about what is best for Spurs. And what is best for Spurs is getting the Kane deal done with the minimum of fuss and moving swiftly on.
In case it had escaped your notice, Spurs do not actually have a permanent manager at the moment.
Ryan Mason is in temporary charge and he is a hugely impressive man who is already showing plenty of signs of having a bright future in management. But when they finally alight on someone who does not reject them, Spurs will appoint a new boss for the start of next season.
The last thing the new manager will want, or need, is lingering uncertainty about whether the club’s star striker will be part of the team or not. The last thing he will want is limited time to integrate Kane’s replacement — and other new signings facilitated by his sale — into his team as they try to begin the process of recovery from the mess Levy has bequeathed them.
Kane pointed out in his interview with Neville that Spurs need a rebuild. That may be something else that will not have endeared him to Levy but, again, it is the truth.
It is also the truth that they cannot afford a rebuild without selling Kane. Kane knows this, Levy knows this, City know this, United know this, everyone knows this.
In a stunning interview with old coach Gary Neville (right) this week, the England striker (left) said he didn’t want to look back at end of career with any regrets as he talked up moving on
Of course, if Levy wants to dig his heels in, if he wants to punish Kane for going public about his desire to leave, if he wants to keep him to prove who’s boss, if he wants to use him to try to keep papering over the cracks, then he can do that. He has Kane under contract for three more seasons and he can make him see that out if he wants to.
But Spurs finished well outside the top four with Kane in the team and the odds are they would finish well outside the top four next season with Kane in the team. And why keep a player who doesn’t want to be there?
Kane has been a loyal servant to Spurs. He has been low maintenance. He has carried the team this season and in other seasons. It is the right thing to let him go. But it is also the smart thing.
Dealing with Levy, Sir Alex Ferguson once said, was more painful than a hip replacement operation and that has been pinned on the Spurs chairman like a badge of honour. Except now, it is not in his interests to be difficult to deal with. City, and others, may just walk away. Levy needs them more than they need him.
It makes sense financially, and in every other way, for Spurs to sell Kane.
Forget talk of a gentleman’s agreement and whether it exists or not. The time is right to sell Kane now. It works for Kane and it works for Spurs. That’s what matters. And if Levy can bin the brinksmanship, he will make sure the deal gets done well before 10.59pm on Tuesday August 31.
It doesn’t have to go down to the wire just to make the chairman look good.
CARD COLLECTORS GO BIG
In the last few weeks, I have been introduced to the world of sports cards and the boom in the prices they are commanding.
A friend of mine paid $7,000, plus a couple of other cards, for a particularly prized Kobe Bryant specimen in an online trade 10 years ago.
On Saturday night, it went into the final hour of bidding on the latest Goldin Auctions elite event having already reached $325,000.
I must try to find that Italia 90 Panini sticker book that is up in the loft somewhere.
A rare sports card immortalising LA Lakers icon Kobe Bryant rocketed to $325,000 at auction
REGULATION IS THE NAME OF THE GAME
The petition asking that the Government should use the recently established fan-led review of football to introduce an Independent Football Regulator in England to put fans back at the heart of our national game garnered more than 100,000 signatures in its first 10 hours last week.
It was a reminder to Tracey Crouch and her newly announced panel that now is the time to act if English football is to get the reform it desperately needs.
The time for empty words and endless procrastination is over.
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