Fabrizio Romano has revealed just how Tottenham came to sealing a sensational transfer for Paolo Dybala last summer, but the move fell through because of the Argentinean insistence on remaining in Turin.
Dybala is one of the world’s biggest stars at the moment and the Argentinean has been a key member of the Juventus team since he joined them.
He is a player that is capable of moments of brilliance and every big team in the world would be glad to have him in their side.
After reaching the final of the Champions League in 2019, Spurs were keen to build on that and perhaps go one step further and win the competition.
A player like Dybala would have made that possible had he joined Mauricio Pochettino’s side.
They did try to sign him and Romano reveals that Juventus accepted Spurs’ offer for his signature because the Italians were willing to sell him.
However, the player insisted that he wanted to remain and that was why the transfer broke down.
Romano related the story on the Last Word On Spurs podcast with Ricky Sacks and Jamie Brown as quoted by This is Futbol:
“Juventus wanted to sell Paulo Dybala, so the agreement between Juventus and Tottenham was absolutely done. They had no problem, Juventus decided to sell him. The same happened with Manchester United some days before. So Juventus had the agreement with Manchester United and with Tottenham to sell Paulo Dybala. Then, the director of Juventus, Fabio Paratici, was in London at the meeting with Tottenham; he was ready to sell the player.
“They made an important bid, because I’m told that they also made an important bid for the contract of the player, for personal terms. Paulo Dybala was called by Paratici, the director of Juventus, [he was] called by his agent, [he was] called also by his family to try to understand the situation with what he wanted to do and he always said, ‘I want to stay at Juventus, I don’t want to move.’
“Paulo was strongly convinced that he could have a top season at Juventus, and he has been the best player in Serie A last season, so he was right. It was really a shame, because I think they had a big opportunity to sign Paulo Dybala, and Tottenham did everything they [could] do. So they [made] an important bid to the player, the agreement with Juventus was closed. So the deal was ready, it was close to ‘here we go’, but Paulo said no, and that’s all.”
Cheers Andrew.. My memories have slightly elaborated on the situation. It wasn’t an interview with Paulo but his girlfriend, and maybe it was wishful thinking that my mind compensated for the missing details. Apologies to you Harry for quoting an ever so slight misreading of that situation.
No glitches ,Porto caused the deal to fail they went against the players wishes.
Of course Levy was to blame. If you chronically procrastinate on deals, routinely try and change the parameters of them and leave your transfer business negotiations till the 11th hour, then you have no margin for error if there are any administrative glitches, which was what happened in this case.
Not true, Levy could have consummated the deal, but decided to leave the then ownership group hanging, whilst he flew to Spurs’s pre-season tour in the USA, thinking he could screw them for a further discount (on what was already an absurdly low price). This typical lowball/penny pinching/haggling tactic spectacularly backfired, when a couple of days later Villa was taken over and the new ownership group refused to countenance the deal.
Try this Harry
https://www.rt.com/sport/465977-dybala-girlfriend-tottenham-transfer/
He can’t really blame him for Moutinho either Porto delayed the paperwork (fax machine )after agreeing to sell him for £24m and the deadline passed 1am after Spurs had completed their end before midnight.Moutinho was happy but Porto would have had to pay sell on clauses.
I think in reality it was the image rights that scuppered the deal. Dybala and his girlfriend both were very keen on coming to London so this version just doesn’t add up at all, he was also gutted when it fell through and said so publicly. Of course the real reason was that scrooge Levy wouldn’t pay the £15m extra to cover the image rights and that cost us the deal. Pretty pathetic when you think how much he wasted on Clarke and Sessegnon.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Romano has been got at by Levy and Donna Cullen (PR) to say this. Besides wasn’t this so called reliable journalist saying weeks ago that this Korean monster playing in the Chinese league to Spurs was a done deal? All smoke and mirrors, but generally you’ll find the smoking gun in the hands of one Daniel Levy when it comes to transfer failures.
You can’t really blame him for Grealish either.
The fee was agreed but the new owners killed it.
Another player who won’t be coming to Spurs is Vedat Muriqi the striker we had been linked with is off to Lazio.
This is a very interesting story (if true), as the widely circulated narrative was that the Dybala deal fell through because Levy wouldn’t pay the image rights fee. If this is genuinely a true account of how it went down then, for once, Levy is exonerated from blame for the failure to consummate the deal. It doesn’t however exculpate our diminutive supremo from gross incompetence in bungling at least a dozen other deals, from Moutinho to Grealish.
Got a link, Jay?
Great stuff, Mr Grove.
As I said all along, there were NO image rights, this was pure fantasy.
Anyone disputing this – I bet you couldn’t pick the lad out in a police line-up. When was the last time you saw this boy on a Pepsi can?
Never.
That all sounds very wrong to me. I remember seeing an interview with Paulo and his g/f saying they were looking forward to moving to London, her for the clothes shops and him looking to play for Spurs..Maybe I remember it wrong then.