Stephane Dalmat has revealed he turned Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United down, before later joining Spurs. That later transfer move isn’t one he’s thrilled about years afterwards either.
Girondins 4 Ever cover comments from the Frenchman today after a recent interview in which he discussed his career.
Dalmat had a wide-ranging career, starting with Châteauroux in France before joining Lens, Marseille, PSG and then Inter Milan. By 2003, he was at Tottenham on loan for a year before returning to Italy in 2004.
More loan moves followed before he had a spell at Racing in Spain. He then returned to France and played for Bordeaux, Stade Rennais and Nimes before retiring in 2012.
He only ended up in England for a year, but could have made the transfer much earlier, as Tottenham and Newcastle both had agreements in place for him.
“It’s the agents, who want to make money on transfers,” he said.
“My agents, at the time, between the transfers from Châteauroux to Lens, from Lens to Marseille, Marseille to Paris, Paris to Inter, everything they picked up… Not one of them told me it was better to do something else, career-wise… That I should settle down.
“It was mainly Éric Di Meco and Jean-Philippe Durand, who were sporting directors at the time, who told me to leave. They reached an agreement with Tottenham and Newcastle. I had Éric Di Meco call me and tell me that there was an agreement with these two clubs.
“I told him that there was no way I was going abroad. It was either I stay in Marseille, or they find me another French club, and there aren’t fifty: Monaco, Lyon, Paris… The deal was made for €70 at PSG, even though I wanted to stay in Marseille.”
His time in England did not prove to be a particularly successful one either. He managed just three goals and two assists in 28 games for Tottenham, numbers which did not convince them to make his move permanent.
Perhaps things would have been different at Newcastle, although Dalmat does not believe that would have been the case.
“I didn’t go to a youth academy, so I wasn’t trained. I was immediately presented with a fait accompli,” he added.
“I had a lot of transfers in the space of four years. When you change clubs often, you don’t have stability, so… When I left Inter, I was in a bit of a hole.
“I played for other clubs, Toulouse, Tottenham, Bordeaux… I didn’t have continuity, and I didn’t have the right people or entourage at the time to advise me properly and tell me to take my time, not to move too fast, especially when I was at Lens.
“I would have liked to have been told ‘stay at Lens for a second season to confirm your skills’, rather than making a big move to Marseille. But then, who turns down Marseille when they’re 19? Marseille was something else.”