The Great Spurs Conspiracy

Can’t quite believe it happened? Doesn’t make sense? Chances are it was the CIA, Illuminati, or Daniel Levy.

“What? you’re an idiot! Daniel Levy wasn’t responsible for the JFK assassination, or faking footage of the man on the moon?”

But if you have lurked on Twitter or any forums for the last few days you will have heard tales of mysteries goings on at Spurs Lodge. Phantom bids, delaying tactics, all supposedly centred around whether or not Daniel Levy is really prepared to put his hand in his pocket, or whether his ‘attempts’ to land players are purely to please fans.

We’ve been linked with Moutinho of Porto for sometime, ever since AVB became manager there was talk that he wanted to be reunited with some of his old Porto players. This was a perfectly reasonable rumour, and one that I believe AVB even came out himself and made public. Moutinho even said he would like to work with AVB.

For a few days leading up the the end of the transfer window it looked like the deal would prove to be too expensive. There was no way that Daniel levy was going to pay £35M for a single player. He has been burnt too many times by the Bentleys and Bents of this world to pay such a sum for one man. However, most Spurs fans, myself included, got more than a little excited when on Friday it looked like everything was set for Moutinho to leave Porto and join Spurs. I could even put up with the announcement that Van der Vaart was leaving.

An extremely reasonable fee was circulated, just £22M, and Portuguese press said the deal was all but done, with just a few creases to iron out. That is until the Porto chairman came out and said that the deal was not yet done. Amidst which, Moutinho was named in the Porto squad for the weekends game, and even rumour he was with the rest of the squad preparing, and even that he was on a plane flying with them to the game. Not exactly what you would expect for a player who’s deal is all but done.

Talks to agree the transfer went well in to the night. We now know it didn’t happen. We have heard from journalists of Porto, or the players agent, increasing the fee at the last minute to account for third-party ownership, even incorrect paper work being faxed to the FA. Then there is a deadline – missed by just 4mins, with the FA then giving us an extra 30min extension. That extension became four hours and even four days, depending on who you read on twitter (Still another day to go if you are still holding out hope on this one!)

And at the end we didn’t get Moutinho. (4 days big guy! Keep that wishful thinking going!)

Like anything that tugs at the heart strings there was a mix of anger and sadness. “Why didn’t this happen? What was the problem? Why didn’t Levy just pay up?”. Amongst all the rational explanations to do with failed brinkmanship, and simple greed, there is the simply fascinating rumour that it was all one big smokescreen.

Like JFK, 9/11 and Tupac, those in mourning now have their own way of having to cope with the loss of both Moutinho and Van der Vaart, the conspiracy that Daniel Levy never had any intention of signing Moutinho and that the whole situation was deliberately engineered to appear to fans and AVB alike, that he was doing his bit to get that star player we so desperately crave.

Could Levy really have made the negotiations so complicated that he knew from the start the deal would never happen? We had just lost Van der Vaart, would Levy really make it look like we were going to sign Moutinho just to appease the fans that all was not lost, things weren’t so bad.

We all know Levy is pretty ruthless, but I just can’t see this happening. Even he would know that at £22M Moutinho would be a steal, with a potential £40M sell on fee if Real Madrid came knocking in a few years.

With Twitter, everyone has a voice, and it becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction. Quite what went on none of us will every be privy to. Just think carefully before listening to anyone on Twitter, it is easy for fact and fiction to become entwined. In fact you should probably just forget everything you have just read.

[author name=”Sibs” avatar=”https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/2528742498/04fbe7bc-075c-46d4-bd96-1e71eaa2cc09.png” twitter=”SibsTHFC” tag=”Sibs[/linequote]