Tottenham Hotspur’s failed bid for Morgan Gibbs-White has prompted a lot of questions since Nottingham Forest refused to accept a bid above the player’s release clause. Gibbs-White eventually signed a new contract with Forest, scuppering any chance Spurs had of landing the player.
It’s been an open question up until now what actually happened. Did Spurs actually meet Gibbs-White’s release clause? Why did Forest refuse to accept the bid? Did Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis actually report Spurs to the Premier League for an illegal approach?
We still don’t know the answers to all of these questions, but articles from Jay Harris in The Athletic and Alasdair Gold in Football.London have provided some new details that have given a bit of clarity to what happened and why.
Here’s a brief summary.
Tottenham Hotspur placed a bid for Gibbs-White that, after escalators, was above the £60m release clause for the player and would’ve been higher than the £65m club record fee they paid for Dominic Solanke
Forest owner Marinakis was furious over the bid, suggesting Spurs had somehow underhandedly discovered the release clause, which was supposedly confidential. In addition, Forest maintained that Tottenham’s initial bid “did not trigger aspects of the clause beyond the £60m fee,” the conditions of which was not explained in either article and remains a mystery
Forest threatened to report Tottenham to the Premier League for an “illegal approach” but never actually did
Tottenham then came back with an even larger bid above Gibbs-White’s release clause, but Forest did not accept that bid either, holding that the approach was illegal
In the meantime, Gibbs-White continued to train, and was convinced to sign a new contract after a 30-minute meeting with Marinakis
Tottenham, upon learning of Gibbs-White’s new contract, were “flabbergasted,” with suggestions within the club that Gibbs-White’s decision to stay at Forest “could not have been a financial one”
It’s not clear who told Tottenham about Gibbs-White’s release clause, or even if anyone did at all; the possibility exists that they simply made a bid and it happened to trigger it, but this can’t be proven and likely won’t be
Gibbs-White telephoned Thomas Frank to apologize for how things played out, and Frank told him he had nothing to apologize for
Nobody — neither Spurs, Forest, CAA Base, or the Premier League — is willing to speak publicly on the record about what really happened
There’s enough smoke here to be able to make a reasonable surmise about what happened, and that is this: MGW had a release clause, Tottenham (by whatever method) met it, and Marinakis simply didn’t want to sell. That’s at least what Occam’s Razor tells me via the above details. It’s not something I would ever bet the house on, but it does feel like the most reasonable explanation.
If MGW had a release clause but Forest believed it to be confidential, then it explains why Marinakis and Forest were so furious over Tottenham’s bid. Regardless of whether Spurs knew or were tipped off about the release clause number or not, if a club makes a bid for a player that eclipses that amount they’re legally obligated to honor it. But a confidential clause makes it somewhat likely that the selling club could just ignore it, because if a tree falls in the forest and doesn’t make a sound, maybe it doesn’t really exist?
That’s a legal argument Tottenham could’ve probably pursued, but it would’ve very likely been a long and drawn out process that might have carried it past the end of the transfer window and into the new season. Once the player decided to sign a new contract, it more or less became moot; in that case I can see a situation where Spurs decided it was not worth the effort.
Now, let’s back up a second and note that Tottenham actually made not one, but TWO bids that were over MGW’s release clause, one (potentially) unknowingly, and one knowingly. I recognize that Gibbs-White was identified as one of the clubs’ key summer signings, but I’m already on record as thinking a £60m bid was already too high. Bidding OVER the release clause for MGW feels a bit insane to me and not exactly a good use of club resources. That nugget of info definitely made my eyebrows raise.
I also am intensely curious what other conditions, beyond the financial bid, might have been included in Gibbs-White’s release clause that Spurs didn’t meet with their bid. I’m struggling to think of what those might have been and whether or not it’s even possible to include those into what is supposed to be a purely financial process.
Also a bit alarming was the suggestion from inside Tottenham’s camp that MGW’s new deal might not have been made purely for financial reasons. There are suggestions that Marinakis has ties to the Greek mafia, and has allegations of sportswashing and corruption made against him in the past. I do not know that Tottenham’s assertions have anything to do with that, nor am I making that claim myself, but it is very interesting to suggest that Gibbs-White’s new deal might not be a purely financial one and then not go any further as to what other factors could have been involved. It’s also important to note, as the Athletic points out, that MGW could’ve been willing to advance his career by moving to Tottenham and also be perfectly happy staying at Forest under new contractual terms; these things are not mutually exclusive.
I’ve been waiting for an article or two like the ones linked above that could provide some additional context to what happened with Morgan Gibbs-White. The new details are interesting, but still don’t provide a full picture of what happened. I doubt we’ll ever know the full story, or at least not for a very long time.
In the end, Marinakis and Nottingham Forest “won” — they were able to successfully refuse to honor a bid for one of their best players that was above the release clause in the player’s contract by throwing a huge hissy fit and screaming about it until Spurs backed away. Tottenham still don’t have a high-level (and healthy) #10, though that could change if they are able to sign Savinho and Eberechi Eze.
It makes you wonder if Forest, or another club, will try this tactic again in the future.