Yesterday we brought the latest on the Georges Kevin N’Koudou and Clinton N’Jie transfers from France. There wasn’t much to say, other than that things weren’t progressing much.
Last week Sport Witness had been informed via a French source that N’Koudou to Tottenham was seriously faltering, but at the time we assumed it would surely be sorted out, especially given that the player had already passed a medical.
The reports in France hadn’t contained any big accusations, which made it look like there was still goodwill to get a deal done. The postmortem and mud slinging hadn’t begun.
Maybe that has now changed.
Marseille centric website Le Phocheen say they’ve been informed why the deals collapsed, and Daniel Levy would, according to their claims, be a star of the proceedings.
Levy is said to have become suspicious over Marseille’s eagerness to sell N’Koudou. The Tottenham boss was apparently determined not to end up looking a fool, especially in talks with Vincent Labrune, who has a reputation for selling players well under their value.
Labrune, who has now left his post, oversaw a calamity period at Marseille. Star players were sold for peanuts, and sometimes even let go for free, due to verbal agreements, contract mismanagement, and general incompetence.
It’s understandable that no club would want to come out of a Marseille deal as the perceived loser.
After a fee was agreed of €13m for N’Koudou, Le Phocheen say Levy did everything possible to get the price down, even wanting a clause inserted into a deal which would mean less money for Marseille if the player got injured.
The claims state that Levy was ‘cutting corners’ and looking for ‘any excuse’ to lower the price.
Paul Mitchell is also brought into it, with it being stated the recruitment specialist, who Tottenham have since announced is leaving, was pushing for the deal to be completed.
An initial fee was pushed down to €5m, from an agreed €13m, and subsequently Marseille have refused to do business.
N’Jie is merely a casualty of war, and sees his deal fail because of what Le Phocheen call the N’Koudou ‘fiasco’.
It must be remembered this is very much the Marseille friendly version of the story, although Le Phocheen aren’t averse to giving their own club a good kicking.
