There’s not many figures in the football world who enjoy getting in a tangle with Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy.
The notoriously shrewd negotiator has a knack for repelling interest in the smorgasbord of Lilywhites stars or commanding extravagant fees to allow them to depart.
Amidst both interest from La Liga behemoths Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spurs’ Danish dynamo Christian Eriksen, Levy and Tottenham have spanked a stomach-churning £225million bounty on the midfielder’s head to finally allow him to leave the North London club (AS, via The Mirror).
The 26-year-old Eriksen is currently contracted at Spurs until 2020, with numerous fans concerned that one of their most outstanding stars (if not ‘the’ most) has yet to fully commit to contract extension negotiations with the club.
Talks have so far not been forthcoming between respective parties and there is the increasing sense that there is a real risk that one of their big kahunas could likely leave Tottenham before his contract ends in 18 months time.
Eriksen has been at Tottenham since being bought from Ajax in summer 2013 for the retrospectively paltry fee of around £11.5m.
If a club such as Real Madrid concedes to the brobdingnagian fee to prise him away, that would astonishingly be a 1860% increase on the amount paid by Tottenham five and half years ago, and allow him to surpass Neymar as the most expensive footballer of all time.
This week it was reported that Los Blancos had plotted an already mind-blowing fee of £100m for Eriksen.
Going on to assert himself as one of the Premier League’s most scintillating assets, Eriksen has made over 250 appearances for Tottenham, scoring 62 goals and providing 78 assists.
Whilst silverware with Spurs has so far remained elusive, Spurs find themselves well within the 2018/19 title race alongside Liverpool and Manchester City.