Dodgy Dealings and Dishonesty in Football. Who'd Have Thought It?

A Massive Cock next to the Tottenham Badge

I am setting myself the challenge of writing this without swearing.

I am writing at a time when the Toby Alderweireld saga has come to an end and it’s comes to the end in the worst possible way in that he’s signed for Spurs.  To say this is a disappointing end to what is a shoddy affair is an understatement.  Media campaigns, dishonesty, legally questionable practice, underhand dealings, ex-employees, incompetence and the usual badge kissing footballer standard rubbish have all played a part and the end result is that Saints got shafted, again, by Tottenham, again.

I have never been so keen for us to sign up a player that we’ve had on loan.  I remember being desperate to sign up Marek Saganowski after a 10 goal in 13 game loan spell and he turned out to not be any good once he had a permanent contract.  Toby Alderweireld would have been different however.  This is very much like when Glenn Hoddle left Saints to return to Spurs as manager in one respect.  Hoddle at the time was at a low point in his career having just shot himself in the foot over his disabled ‘reap what you sow’ comments and Saints gave him the chance to resurrect his career as a manager, which he did with aplomb for about a year before Spurs came calling and off he went without a second glance.  Alderweireld had had a season with Atletico Madrid where he hardly played, Saints gave him the chance to resurrect his career and he repaid them and joined Spurs.  It’s worse in a way as Hoddle was a Spurs legend beforehand whereas Toby’s connection seems to be that they have a couple of Belgian players. 

Due to way it’s been reported, mainly through speculation and guesswork, it’s hard to know the facts so some, or all of the following may have happened at the three clubs in this triangle.

Atletico Madrid are a club which pride themselves on buying small and selling big, in much the same way that Saints operate.  They loaned Toby to Saints last year with an option to buy at the end of the season for £6.8 million with an option to buy that out for £1.5 million which it was assumed they’d take up if they thought that the value of of the player had now exceeded £8.3 million.  This clause had a time limit on it and they didn’t sort that out in time and therefore, should Saints want to take up the option to buy, they should have been able to do so.  Atletico decided that they didn’t care about the Saints clause and flogged him to Spurs as they chucked more money at them, £11.5 million by the sound of it.  Atletico clearly messed up not buying out the Saints clause in time but they just didn’t care about the agreement or Saints threatened legal action which may or may not happen.   Also, if he hadn’t been on loan with us and had just been sat in Atletico’s reserves for a season then his value to them in the transfer market would not have been anywhere near what they’ve sold him for.  Nice isn’t it?  From a playing point of view, it makes no difference to Atletico who they sell him to.  So why Spurs?  If they’d bought out the clause as expected then I’m sure we’d have bid the same as Spurs and there may have even been a bidding war.  It looks like we eventually did match the bid at the last minute but too late.

Saints appear to have been played by Atletico in order to get more money out of another potential buyer.  Saints are possibly guilty of believing the player when he said he wanted to stay and possibly guilty of standing there like Neville Chamberlain (no relation to Alex) and pointing at their bit of paper which appeared to say that they had got what they wanted.  Many will say that Saints could have afforded £11.5 million as if they sign Virgil van Dijk for example as a replacement, he’ll cost that much but it appears the club thought they had an agreement to sign the player for £4.7 million less than that so why would you throw away that amount of money when you didn’t believe you had to.  Once it became apparent that Atletico didn’t care about that agreement, Saints tried to bid more money but by then the horse had bolted.  Saints have had their pants pulled down one way or another and are either guilty of naivety or incompetence.  Personally, I don’t believe it was the latter.  I believe we played by the rules and expected others to do the same.  We’ve given Alderweireld a chance to resurrect his career, increased his value for Atletico and proved he can handle the English league for Spurs.  So all three other parties have benefitted and we’ve been shafted.

Spurs in the eyes of the media are the whiter than white in all this.  The argument is between Saints and Atletico and there’s no blame attached to Spurs and no issue with their conduct.  The legal argument if there is one will be between the other two clubs so they’re done with the whole thing now unless any legal row results in the player not being allowed to play until it’s all resolved.  Two words for you – Paul Mitchell.  Mitchell was the Head of Recruitment at Saints when we signed Toby and now he holds the same role at Spurs.  He would have known every single detail of the contract that Saints signed with Atletico, known of all the clauses, known all of the option expiry dates and so Question 1 when they decided to get involved should have been, “Have you sorted out all the clauses with Saints in the contract?”.  As the answer to that was clearly no, Spurs would have known that they had no right to make an approach at that point.  Will anyone care?  No – no one will care in the slightest – the media haven’t even looked at this angle.  Illegal approaches go on all the time as we know.  If you want to go conspiracy theory mad and take an alternative view, maybe Mitchell had already been tapped up by Spurs and set up the deal with holes in it to allow Spurs to come in at this point.  We won’t ever know as no one is asking.

And then there’s the player who came out with the quotes that always come back and bite you later when you do an about turn.  “It doesn’t feel like my last home game” he said after we hammered Villa in the last home game of last season.  We had the usual ‘love the club, love the fans’ stuff and there’s the expected respect for the manager of Ronald Koeman’s standing.  Ronald said only a few days ago that he’s spoken to Toby and he wanted to join Saints and now it turns out that Toby did have the choice of who to join but had already made up his mind to join Spurs, wehcih he told Saints about the day before it was announced – Footballer being economical with the truth shocker. 

No one comes out of this with any credit and it’s another nail in the ideal that footballers mean what they say and actually care about the club they play for or the fans of that club.  Let’s not pretend he won’t do well at Spurs though because he will – he’s different class.  They may have about 15 central defenders as befits Spurs scattergun approach to signing players but they’re all poor and he’s straight to the top of the list.

The bottom line is that Toby Alderweireld decided to he’d rather join Spurs than us.  That’s his prerogative of course and as has been proved many times in the past, you’re better off having players who want to play for you.  Like with Nathaniel Clyne, it’s hard to wish them well because of the clubs they’ve joined but in this case it’s hard because there’s the feeling that we’ve been treated very badly by everyone, including the player himself.  He’s apparently sent Ronald Koeman a text message to say thanks.  Nice one Toby – a real personal way to thank a true legend of the game for rescuing your career.

Anyway – he’s been, he’s chosen to go to a rival and we must move on as always.  Nothing changes, and neither Spurs or Saints will be challenging for a Champions League spot next season.  One thing we learnt last season is that we’ll be ok.

Now for the swearing section as we explore the reasons why I’m pissed off about this.

1. He’s a great player and he’s not going to playing for us this year and we have to replace him.  We’re used to replacing players but there’s always that risk of buying a Vegard Forren.
2. It’s Fucking Spurs who we’re competing with for 5^th – 8^th place in the League.  We finished a whole 2 points behind them last year and we should be aspiring to finish in front of them this year.  Instead – we are weaker and they are stronger at this moment in time.
3. We’re busy releasing self-congratulatory videos about how great we are behind the scenes and we may well have fucked up here.  Like I said earlier, I don’t believe we have misunderstood the contract that was signed but just in case - pride comes before a fall and all that.
4. We’ve been played by Atletico and Spurs.  The bigger clubs have got together and it all appears to have been done in a rush before we could do anything about it.  At present we don’t know what date all the clauses expired but I’m guessing it was July 1^st, less than a week before Toby was unveiled at Fucking Spurs.  Once he’s been picture holding the shirt, it’s hardly going to unravel is it?
5. It’s Fucking Spurs who have pissed us off so many times before – Hoddle, Dean Richards, Gareth Bale, Pochettino, Mitchell.  Not to mention what we’ve had off them – Tommy Forecast and Ryan Smith – absolute turds of players.
6. The player has clearly lied to Koeman, one of the most respected figures in the game who has achieved pretty much everything as a player and is proving to be a great manager.  Pretty much all footballers are scumbags and just follow the wedge, not caring who they shaft along the way.  Toby has an image of being a great stand up guy but his just doesn’t tally. “I’ve sent Koeman a text to say thanks” – very big of you Toby.  As soon as Spurs made their (possibly illegal) approach then he was only going to join them but he obviously strung us along for as long as possible like an absolute shit.
7. Spurs fans are in the main, pricks.  Deluded arseholes who think they’re one of the elite.  I’m 46 years old and they haven’t challenged for the Premier League in my lifetime.  They’re a big club, bigger that us but nowhere near the top 4 clubs and whoever they sign, they’ll finish between 5^th and 8^th like they always do.
8. The media campaign – no one asking the Mitchell question, no one suggesting Spurs in the wrong at all.  I think it’s a really good angle for some investigative journalist but no one can be arsed as it’s only Saints fans who would be interested and no one ekse cares.
9. The good guys have in all likelihood, been fucked over yet again it appears.  We tried to do things the right way but by the time it became clear that the contract we had meant nothing, it was too late to compete on a level playing field to sign the player.
10. Sing your own fucking song you wankers.
11. Just once, it would be nice if a player chose us over Fucking Spurs and Fucking Liverpool but that’s never going to be the case.  Money and the fact that the clubs in question won trophies some time back in the last century before the player was even born, are always going to be more of a pull.  No matter how many players leave us and see their careers tank at a bigger club, there’s always going to be the next one queuing up to leave. 
12. No one outside of Southampton gives a shit – the big club got the result.

Good news is

1. We’ve still got Jose Fonte who brings best out of whoever plays with him. He’s the elader of the defence so any new centre back just basically has to do what he’s told.
2. I’m convinced that Florin Gardos is going to step up this season.
3. It’s over, nice and early – we have plenty of time to find a replacement and we’ve proved to be pretty good at that recently.
4. It wasn’t Liverpool.
5. I’m not sure that Fuckign Spurs ‘Dream Belgian Defence’ of Toby and Vertonghen will be that decent.  Is one of them a defensive leader like Fonte is?  Hopefull they’ll find out that the reason they are right and left back for Belgium is that they’re not great at centre back.  Clutching at straws here aren’t I….
6. We might sue Atletico and he might be blocked from playing if the transfer isn’t ratified until the legal action is over.  This would be incredibly amusing.

Anyway, now it’s done we can all move on.  Any legal case will proceed in the background and we can get on with pre-season and the Europa League matches approaching.  Bring it on.  What’s that marketing phrase we have?... oh yes… We March On!