‘Tottenham to pay extra £10m to get Gibbs-White deal done’ amid hijack threat
Tottenham will pay over the £60m release clause in Morgan Gibbs-White’s contract to fend off any clubs looking to hijack the deal.
Spurs were slow to get started in the transfer window this summer, in part due to the uncertainty surrounding Ange Postecoglou.
But following the Australian manager’s sacking and Thomas Frank’s appointment as Tottenham boss, things kicked into gear as Mathys Tel, Kota Sakai, and Mohammed Kudus moved to North London.
Gibbs-White looked set to be the next player to join Tottenham after having his release clause triggered.
That was until Forest claimed that knowledge of the 25-year-old’s buy-out clause had been obtained illegally and then threatened to take the North London club to the Premier League over the matter.
However, Gibbs-White is not engaging with the Tricky Trees’ attempts to open contract talks, Sky Sports reported.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, finance expert Stefan Borson explained that the likely next steps would be for Tottenham to pay over the midfielder’s release clause to settle the matter.
This would also have the added bonus of securing Gibbs-White’s services before another team comes in for the former Wolves man.
Tottenham to pay over the odds for Gibbs-White
Borson told Football Insider exclusively that despite the obvious fix to the issue being Spurs paying over the odds for Gibbs-White, Forest’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, would make life difficult for the North London club.
The former Man City financial adviser also warned that any team could now come in and trigger the midfielder’s release clause, as it is now public knowledge.
Borson said: “The end result is that to get this deal done, Tottenham are probably gonna have to negotiate with Nottingham Forest a fee that includes not just the £60m release clause, but a little extra to effectively buy themselves out of the dispute, or walk away.
“Now, we’ve seen in the past other teams have walked away. Of course, we know Liverpool walked away from Van Dijk and came back in January.
“I wonder, though, in this scenario, whether Spurs would be as relaxed as Liverpool were. I can well imagine that Van Dijk told Liverpool that he was okay to wait six months, and Liverpool told Van Dijk they would definitely purchase him in January, and therefore they had a clear run on it.
“I suspect Gibbs White might be a slightly different scenario where it’s a little less certain. If he had a very good half of the season, let’s say, there could be other teams that would be interested in buying him.
“And then there’s the question as to what does happen now with a release clause that the whole world knows about. So right now, any club presumably could pick up the phone to Nottingham Forest and say, well, we’re triggering the release clause.
“We clearly didn’t breach the confidentiality [agreement]. Nothing to do with us. We discovered it through The Athletic, through David Ornstein reporting it. That’s how we learned about it. It’s nothing to do with us. We didn’t realise that Spurs had breached the confidentiality and we’re paying £60m.
“And all of a sudden, the player’s going somewhere else. So I think, I still think the most likely scenario is that Spurs are the only team that want to buy the player right now, that they’ll pay an extra, let’s say, £5-10m, maybe an extra £5m plus £5m, and the deal could get done.
“That would be the most likely outcome, but I don’t think anything’s guaranteed, especially because Marinakisis, being quite an aggressive and forthright business player, and that’s the same on the Spurs side. So it’s going to be interesting.”
Yoane Wissa ‘will end up’ at Tottenham this summer
Amid a busy summer restructuring of Spurs’ squad, Keith Wyness told Football Insider that he expects Yoane Wissa “will end up” at Tottenham.
The Congolese striker was one of the Premier League’s best strikers in the 2024/25 season and has worked under Frank since moving to England in 2021.
Tottenham are desperate to avoid a repeat of last season when they finished 17th under Postecoglou, and the addition of Wissa would be a major boost to the club’s frontline.