Tottenham Hotspur Breaches of Jermain Defoe Transfer - Times Exclusive

[Neon_Knight_]

Didn't see anything in the link that was shared about Southampton being punished. No idea, but wouldn't be surprised if it was deemed "not important enough for the story"

Well the punishment that Arsenal received is only relevant to Portsmouth (the buying club), not us (the selling club).

 

[g_harry]

What seems to be the main concern was the involvement of Mitchell Thomas who at the time was a unregistered agent. However as a club spurs appointed a registered agent in Peters. So spurs contract was with Peters. However the claim that Spurs did not have a representation contract with Peters. Even though there was agreement on how much Peters would get paid for acting in Spurs behalf.

Honestly this has been sensationalised for the journalists gain.

Plus the FA were previously made aware of the transaction but didn't act or they felt they didn't need to get involved because I sense the case is fairly weak.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Arsenal... again... From 2005.

Arsenal fined over unlicensed agent

Arsenal are to consider launching an appeal after being found guilty of dealing with an unregistered agent by the Football Association. The Barclays Premiership champions were fined £10,000 by the FA

www.thetimes.co.uk

So the £60k fine (no points deduction and no individuals suspended) was for a second offence within a period of several years, and the first offence was sanctioned with a £10k fine.

Based on that precedent, our fine should equate to 2-3 days' wages for Levy.

 

[Gassin's finest]

Is this for real, or a Daily Mash style bit of irony?

 

[TheChosenOne]

I wouldn't mind but we only sold him because he didn't understand the offside rule.

I want enquiries into the Berbatov & Bale transfers - just for shits and giggles.

 

[mil1lion]

He hasn't used an example of an extreme case. He has completely misrepresented the facts of the example used. Luton's points deduction related to far more serious rule breaches that had nothing to do with the use of an unlicensed agent. They were charged with 15 rule breaches simultaneously and the use of an unlicensed agent was probably the least serious of the lot. The reality is that Luton would have been sanctioned with a smaller fine (i.e. significantly less than the £50k fine) and not deducted any points, had they only been charged with the use of an unlicensed agent.

Lawton knows exactly what he's doing by suggesting, but not directly stating, that the points deduction was for the use of an unlicensed agent. He knows that's not what that sanction was punishment for. He also knows that no team has ever been deducted points for the use of an unlicensed agent. In politics, this would be considered "deliberately misleading" rather than "lying". In journalism this is considered "standard practice of a typical slime-ball journalist".


No, it's basically the equivalent of saying someone was sent to prison for 10 years for speeding, when actually they were incarcerated for armed robbery and also happened to be given a miniscule speeding fine after been caught by a speed camera during their attempted getaway.

From what I saw of the Talk Sport interview he was talking about how serious the charges are and spoke about charges Luton and Leeds got as examples of how serious. I'm not sure what his point was but he made it seem he was emphasising the point of how serious the charges are more than anything. Although I didnt hear him say that those were similar cases to us just that they involved dealing with unlicensed agents. He didn't appear to suggest we could face similar charges or even suggest what the implications are for us. So maybe just throwing those extreme examples out there to try and make it a bigger deal to sell the story. Then it's up to the listener or reader to interprete what the implications could possibly be.

 

[Saoirse]

Agents are regularly taken on by selling clubs too, especially if they're keen to move a player on. Which we probably were at the time - if I remember correctly Defoe only had 18 months left on his contract and wanted first-team football, with him being mostly stuck on the bench behind Keane and Berbatov, so we wanted to make sure we got a decent transfer fee.

(Obviously with our real strength in long-term planning at the time we were left with Pavlyuchenko, Bent, and Fraizer fucking Campbell on loan six months later, but that's another story!)

 

[Trix]

What seems to be the main concern was the involvement of Mitchell Thomas who at the time was a unregistered agent. However as a club spurs appointed a registered agent in Peters. So spurs contract was with Peters. However the claim that Spurs did not have a representation contract with Peters. Even though there was agreement on how much Peters would get paid for acting in Spurs behalf.

Honestly this has been sensationalised for the journalists gain.

Plus the FA were previously made aware of the transaction but didn't act or they felt they didn't need to get involved because I sense the case is fairly weak.

Fact of the matter is if Thomas received payment from THFC directly or via a 3rd party for his involvement there is a case to answer. The fact we used another agent on the paperwork is irrelevant if that can be proved.

I'll also remind everyone if it did happen then it was sanctioned by holier than thou Daniel Levy who is and always has been leading the pack as far as putting pressure on the top brass to make sure everyone is playing by the rules.

 

[newbie]

did the payment come from the portsmouth side or the spurs side?

 

[neogenisis]

Its only being peddled around due to the Everton/Chelsea/City stuff. Its sensationalist. Fucking media.

 

[Booney]

There’s a statute of limitations on this kind of allegation thought to be around 6 years. Think we’ll be fine. Doesn’t directly mention us but worth a listen for anyone interested in this stuff;

‎the Debrief: Could Manchester City & Chelsea Actually be Relegated? on Apple Podcasts

‎Show the Debrief, Ep Could Manchester City & Chelsea Actually be Relegated? - Nov 20, 2023

itunes.apple.com

 

[Neon_Knight_]

From what I saw of the Talk Sport interview he was talking about how serious the charges are and spoke about charges Luton and Leeds got as examples of how serious. I'm not sure what his point was but he made it seem he was emphasising the point of how serious the charges are more than anything. Although I didnt hear him say that those were similar cases to us just that they involved dealing with unlicensed agents. He didn't appear to suggest we could face similar charges or even suggest what the implications are for us. So maybe just throwing those extreme examples out there to try and make it a bigger deal to sell the story. Then it's up to the listener or reader to interprete what the implications could possibly be.

“When Luton Town, in the same year [as Defoe’s transfer], were found to have paid agents without representation contracts, they received a 10-point deduction.”
He clearly wants people to think that Luton got a 10-point deduction for breaching agent rules, even though he knows that the points deduction was a sanction for the most severe few of the 15 charges that Luton was hit with that year. If Luton hadn't been found guilty of breaching agent rules, they would still have been hit with the 10-point deduction.

“When Massimo Cellino at Leeds was found in 2017 to have dealt with an unlicensed agent, he was banned from football for a year, received a £250k fine, and the entire Leeds board had to go on an education course on how to deal with football intermediaries.”
Matt Lawson chooses to ignore the fact that there will almost certainly have been past-offences and politics factored into the decision of what punishment to hand out. Cellino had successfully appealed against a decision to block his purchase of Leeds FC (he failed the “fit and propose persons test”, due to a criminal conviction, but this decision was overturned by an independent appeal panel).
Cellino was later disqualified by the Football League (and asked to resign by Leeds), after being found guilty of tax evasion by the Italian courts.
It was only 1-2 later that Cellino was investigated for breaching agent rules - only a few months after returning from his earlier ban. Clearly there would have been motivation for the book to be thrown at him for any further minor rule breach.
Lawton also conveniently neglects to mention that an 18-month ban + £250k fine was reduced to 12-month ban + £100k fine following appeal, so his stated punishment is factually incorrect.

He immediately followed the two above quotes, which were stated sequentially without any pause / disruption, by saying:
"I want to emphasise, these [Tottenham's potential breaches] are serious breaches."

These are direct quotes from the TalkSport interview. It’s mentioned during the interview that Matt Lawton has spent over two years investigating the Defoe transfer. Therefore, he’s had far too much time to prepare his “similar” examples for us to accept that he may be anything less than highly familiar with the examples that he chose to misrepresent. It's unreasonable to suggest that he is doing anything other than intentionally comparing our situations with Luton and Leeds in a highly misleading way.

The most similar example that he could have given would have been Arsenal's first of two agent breaches that they were charged for - and only given tiny fines for.
Arsenal got a £10k fine for the first offence (that's the precedent set for our situation), followed by a £60k fine for a repeat of the same offence (having already been found guilty of the first offence, so it will have been viewed as a repeat offence at the time).
The difference is that Arsenal was the buying club, while we were the selling club. I may be mistaken, but I believe the buying club will have been more at fault, due to being the party that paid all/most of the money to the unlicensed intermediary. I can't find anything about the punishments for the buying clubs - presumably because those clubs were lower profile, but potentially because the punishments for the selling clubs were lesser or non-existent.

 

[offside_ruel_fox]

The fact this hasn’t even been reported on the BBC or SkySports Football websites suggests to me it’s a non story.

 

[McFlash]

it was sanctioned by holier than thou Daniel Levy

It feels like you're letting your feeling about him creep back in here mate.
It's quite possibly a mistake, or the fact that he didn't know the rules, one would assume that he would employ people for that sort of stuff.
But then the whole "too many loans departure of Doherty" proves that those he employs may not be up to par.

I think, on the whole, he's right to preach sustainability and working in the rules so even if they've fucked up on this one occasion, I don't think it's right to start questioning his overall stance because it's more likely to have been an error than intentional.

 

[mil1lion]

I doubt there's a chariman in football who hasn't had a deal take place where some rule hasn't been broken

 

[PaulM]

Fact of the matter is if Thomas received payment from THFC directly or via a 3rd party for his involvement there is a case to answer. The fact we used another agent on the paperwork is irrelevant if that can be proved.

I'll also remind everyone if it did happen then it was sanctioned by holier than thou Daniel Levy who is and always has been leading the pack as far as putting pressure on the top brass to make sure everyone is playing by the rules.

Well, let's wait until we're found guilty, and Levy knowingly so, before we start throwing that sort of stuff around.

 

[StanSpur]

I think this popped up because it was previously investigated and therefore would have been easy to find again given the current news cycle with Everton and city. I cannot see there being a serious punishment for spurs because it has previously been looked at and it didn’t result in anything. What I do worry about is it casting a looking glass over the club and further issues being found (which no doubt there are as with all clubs if you look hard enough). I’m also pissed off it was one of our own players that is the bad agent (literally) in the story

 

[newbie]

It feels like you're letting your feeling about him creep back in here mate.
It's quite possibly a mistake, or the fact that he didn't know the rules, one would assume that he would employ people for that sort of stuff.
But then the whole "too many loans departure of Doherty" proves that those he employs may not be up to par.

I think, on the whole, he's right to preach sustainability and working in the rules so even if they've fucked up on this one occasion, I don't think it's right to start questioning his overall stance because it's more likely to have been an error than intentional.

Also the payments where disclosed and not paid off the books, which is the issue with city and Chelsea

 

[McFlash]

It feels like you're letting your feeling about him creep back in here mate.
It's quite possibly a mistake, or the fact that he didn't know the rules, one would assume that he would employ people for that sort of stuff.
But then the whole "too many loans departure of Doherty" proves that those he employs may not be up to par.

I think, on the whole, he's right to preach sustainability and working in the rules so even if they've fucked up on this one occasion, I don't think it's right to start questioning his overall stance because it's more likely to have been an error than intentional.

A dislike, rather than a disagree on this @Trix suggests to me that rather than you basing your posts on any info you may have, you just dislike people not agreeing with your opinion.

Mate, we all appreciate the information you provide on here but that doesn't mean we have to agree with everything you say.

If itks want to post and be treated like normal members, they shouldn't act like divas when someone offers a different opinion, or point of view.

 

[Ghost Hardware]