Tottenham Reportedly in Contract Negotiations with Toby Alderweireld
Tottenham appear to be in contract negotiations with Toby Alderweireld to secure the 27-year-old beyond the 2020 season.
Just four days after signing Jan Vertonghen to a new three-year contract extension until 2019, and a day after Football Leaks’ report that Toby Alderweireld has a £25.4 million release clause inserted into his contract, Tottenham have begun contract negotiations to prevent any team from signing him away.
Along with the alleged release clause that Spurs have denied so far, Alderweireld’s salary appears to be at £50,000-a-week, which is clearly low now considering what the Belgian center-back accomplished in his first season with the north London club.
Aside from being Spurs’ best central defender on the squad, Alderweireld picked up three individual honors such as Premier League PFA Team of the Year, UEFA Europa League Squad of the Season and Tottenham Hotspur Player of the Year.
Just winning these three trophies alone would have begun talks on a new deal eventually (read as: over time). But now that reports are surfacing of a release clause — whether they are true or false — this has only accelerated the process of signing Toby Alderweireld to a long-term deal that will take him beyond the 2020 season.
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The Telegraph’s Matt Law writes that Alderweireld’s release clause can only be activated in the summer of 2019 should Spurs trigger his one-year option to extend his deal to 2020.
Furthermore, any transfer that a team would attempt in order to pry the Belgian defender away, “would have to be completed at least 14 days before the closure of that summer’s transfer window”.
As of right now, because there’s three more years left until Tottenham can activate the release clause that Football Leaks has reported on, there is actually none to speak of.
To complicate matters just a bit, Mauricio Pochettino was unaware of the terms that Daniel Levy and the Belgian international conducted last summer when Toby Alderweireld signed from Alético Madrid.
“I don’t know the details of his contract,” Pochettino said. “But not one player has a buy-out clause, I have never heard that in England. It’s a detail I really don’t know.”
It’s to be expected that a new deal will happen within the coming days, weeks or months but the Argentine manager doesn’t foresee it happening soon: “You need to wait. It’s a private matter.”
When the final numbers will be completed, Toby Alderweireld should be within the £70,000-a-week range like Christian Eriksen after he got a new deal back in September.
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While it’s understandable that £25.4 million is chump change for the elite clubs of Europe to buyout the 27-year-old, it’s not that simple of a process to begin with. First, Alderweireld has to agree to join a new team. Two, Spurs have to agree to a sale. Both are unlikely to happen.
In all honesty, Tottenham have the upper hand and will deny any attempt clubs would make to not lose Alderweireld. More importantly, the biggest takeaway from this whole Football Leaks incident, is that Spurs will have their entire backline signed long-term eventually. That in of itself is quite impressive. And doing so with a tight wage structure to boot.