We were swapping Hendo for Dempsey at the time?
Yes plus cash, oh Brendan.
Porto in financial trouble. Delaying on payments for Marko Grujic. Told us Diaz for sale. JK wanted him. Had 80 million euros release clause but Porto willing to sell for 60 million plus add ons. LFC not interested at that price. Spurs interested. Negotiated 45 millions euros plus add ons deal. Porto told LFC. LFC recruitment team went to FSG and they agreed to match the Spurs deal. Porto wanted 8 million upfront. We agreed. Spurs tried to improve the offer but JK and Diaz had spoken and the deal was done. Levy furious. Threatened to report LFCās recruitment team to John Henry and Mike Gordon. Only flaw in that was that Henry and Gordon were delighted with the strategy.
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We asked Porto to keep us updated on any deals agreed with other clubs. They told us about the deal with Spurs and we agreed to do the same deal but pay a bit more upfront, which helps Porto sort out some FFP issues.
Article says Daniel Levy was so angry he tried to report our recruitment team to John Henry. For what exactly Iām not sure. Anyway, Henry - according to the article - was delighted with the way we negotiated the transfer.
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Yes, Iām sure they really felt threatened when they heard that.
I remember when almost every player we were linked to had the threat of Spurs gazumping us and Iām loving this now
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I suspect the complaint would be on the grounds of inducing a breach of contract, assuming Spurs and Porto had a non-disclosure agreement regarding their contract discussions?
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Donāt be. This isnāt really gazumping despite the article headlines implying that . And, it sounds like Levy was trying to screw them over on the add on part of the deal.
Liverpool had a deal with Porto that they could put in a bid if one was accepted from another club. We had been in talks with them since last autumn, so not as if we had just got involved now.
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Oh my word! So, Porto were in collusion with us then.
Also, when Jurgen goes on the charm offensive, the deal is good as sealed.
Edit: Levy dithers too much as well.
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Quote John Henry
I canāt believe what Levy is smoking there at the Tottenham Stadium.
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Is anybody thinking this guy could be a replacement for Salah instead of a partner for Salah.
Just throwing it out thereā¦.
Thatās an interesting point. I can imagine them being part of the process, but as it risks tying the hands of a selling club how do they usually deal with that?
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No, he plays on the opposite flank doesnāt he?
Indeed.
Truthfully, nobody knows what is going other than those at the club. We could be lining up to sell any of Salah, Mane or Firmino in the summer, or we could be planning to go into next season with all 5. Time will tell.
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Basically a right to match bid. Wonder how many other players weāve gotten these sorta options in now. Levy negotiating down and us going in there and getting the bid at that negotiated price. Thatās golden. LFC should do that more nowadays
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I remember the days when other clubs would snatch a target from right under our nose or an owner would decline to sell at the last moment. Those were the days 
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Yeah we had scouted Willian when Tottenham moved in for him (Only for Chelsea to steal him at a very late stage). There were probably other similar cases as well.
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Also I bet Levy had pissed off Porto mgmt a lot with his hard bargaining act and there were more than happy to let us win.
It happens a lot.
Iād be very surprised if Porto had done anything wrong here. AFAIK they never accepted Spurs bid, and why would they be locked into accepting an offer that wasnāt favourable to them (add-ons unlikely to activate, not enough money up front which they needed)?
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With money, generally. Itās one thing to let 3rd parties know of separate discussions but another thing entirely to let them know of terms. Still, these things move too quickly for clubs to be able to do much about it at the time. Spurs may well look to Arbitration (basically squeeze some money out of us) if they feel they have genuine cause for complaint or they may just put it down to fairly usual transfer murkiness, that they would have been more than happy to have found themselves the other side of!
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No new news but everyone seems to love Fabrizio these days.
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