- Jan 27, 2008
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Levy didn’t renege on his word - a bigger club didn’t come in for Modric at the time, only Chelsea!When Levy would not sell Modric to Chelsea Modric was furious and claimed that Levy broke their gentleman's agreement.
"I reminded the chairman of our gentleman's agreement when we were in Dubrovnik last summer and I agreed a contract extension with Tottenham," Modric told Sportske Novosti. "At that time, I had an open chat with Levy – that if a bigger club came in with a concrete offer, we would consider it and agree the best solution for all concerned. Now Levy doesn't want to talk to me and said there is no possibility that I can leave Spurs. He threatened me – he said if I didn't accept the club's stance, they would make me sit on the bench or in the stands."
Levy forced Modric to stay an extra year and then sold him on his terms, and not to a domestic rival. Any player making a gentleman's agreement with Levy and thinking that will over rule a legally binding contract is very naive at the very least.
Levy will know there is no point keeping any unhappy player long term, and that he will need to maximise the transfer fee we recoup for that player. But right now, I imagine Levy is desperate to keep Kane at least until next season when foreign clubs will hopefully have greater transfer budgets that they do at the end of a lockdown year. After learning a hard lesson with Carrick and Berbatov he has shown with Modric, Bale and Eriksen that he will not sell players to domestic rivals.