On Tuesday, Italy’s TMW claimed Tottenham had submitted a €55m offer for Matthijs de Ligt.
Wednesday’s edition of De Telegraaf reported interest from both Tottenham and Manchester City, although they didn’t report any offers. If it had been Ajax pushing the idea of a big De Ligt bid then the Dutch newspaper would have known… as was the case with Davinson Sanchez when he moved to Tottenham.
Then later on Wednesday, TMW reported a €60m offer from Manchester City, which is taking things even more into the land of hype.
Interestingly, Wednesday’s Tuttosport also reports the Tottenham offer, giving no credit and presenting it as their own information.
Whilst the Turin newspaper, who are covering it all from a Juventus perspective, believe Ajax want €50m it’s still claimed Spurs have offered €55m, which is obviously more than enough.
It’s Mino Raiola who is expected to negotiate De Ligt’s exit from Ajax, and that could be a clue as to where all these claims of big offers are coming from. Raiola is expert at hyping up a transfer for a long time before it actually happens.
When Ajax get into the swing of selling De Ligt then there will likely be questionable claims from that direction too.
As Tottenham were negotiating with the Eredivisie club for Sanchez, the Dutch media were fed stories of a big Real Madrid offer… which seemed to be total nonsense to pressure Spurs.
This one is going to get messy.
