Jol bruised by boardroom blunders - The Observer

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An interesting read from yesterdays Observer

Jol bruised by boardroom blunders

Spurs' botched handling of the Michael Carrick sale typifies the turmoil at White Hart Lane, reports Kevin Mitchell

When Martin Jol looks out on the Old Trafford pitch this afternoon, his gaze might linger on one opposition player in particular. If Jol had not been forced, against his better judgment, to sell Michael Carrick to Manchester United last year, Tottenham would in all likelihood not be in such turmoil and the manager's authority would be intact instead of in tatters.

The Carrick saga, more than any of the many others that have blighted Jol's time at Spurs, defines what is wrong with the club. Lining up for Tottenham in his place will probably be Didier Zokora, a player Jol had forced on him and who has hardly been an unqualified success at White Hart Lane. This is not the team the Dutchman could and should have had at his disposal.

It is now emerging that there have been several other transfer blunders. But it is not just past follies that haunt Jol and Tottenham. As well as speculation about the manager's future there are rumours - denied, of course - that star striker Dimitar Berbatov is still being courted by United. Clandestine meetings with likely candidates for Jol's job have also lent an air of intrigue to the sorry affair.

So Tottenham go into today's match burdened by much more than the prospect of trying to beat a Manchester United team yet to be roused to full pitch. The players and Jol have to put behind them one of the worst weeks in the long and sometimes glorious history of the club, a week in which the unpalatable truth of in-fighting from board level to the pitch has finally been exposed, a farce that has undermined the manager, unsettled the players and angered the supporters.

Insiders have told The Observer that the root cause of the chaos at White Hart Lane is meddling in selection and the buying and selling of players by the chairman Daniel Levy and his influential sidekick Paul Kemsley, who does not rate Jol. They have as allies Damien Commoli, the sporting director, and, curiously, Donna Cullen, the communications director. Plenty of directors, not much direction.

Harried by this powerful quartet, and obviously concerned about leaked stories of either Fabio Capello or Juande Ramos replacing him, Jol has remained dignified and diplomatic. 'We've never seen a week like it,' a club source said. 'But he's bearing up amazingly well.'

Jol and his captain, Robbie Keane, had to brave a blizzard of awkward questions during the scheduled media day at the club's training ground in Chigwell on Friday, and Cullen will be trawling the interpretation of their quotes with a critical eye this morning.

Cullen has her supporters at board level but I was told, 'She overlooks every word written or said about Spurs. She oversees the manager's programme notes and puts her red pen through much of what he says. When it comes to football and publicity, she just doesn't get it.'

There will not be much cause for angst in Keane's utterances. He squirmed nervously as he batted back repeated inquiries about dressing-room morale with standard cliches. The sanguine Jol looked and sounded like a man on borrowed time.

Joe Lewis, the sixteenth richest man in Britain according to the lists, oversees his investment in Tottenham from the comfort of his mansion in Lyford Cay in the Bahamas, and he will have been disturbed that the simmering tension at Spurs has been handled so ham-fistedly. It is understood that Lewis and Levy (who is effectively auditioning for a bigger role in Lewis's Enic empire while he is in charge of Tottenham) want to sell the club. To attract the top price they need a bigger stadium, with at least a 50,000 capacity, and Champions League football.

'Their aim is simple,' another White Hart Lane source said. 'It's to raise the club's value in order to make a massive killing by selling the club. They think they can put at least another £50million on Spurs' value before selling. Jol doesn't know who to trust, so he doesn't trust any of them.'

Kemsley, the vice-chairman, has been tasked with acquiring a state-of-the-art training complex, but a refurbished ground - and, probably, a new manager - is the more immediate project.

On the face of it, the future should be bright. There is a waiting list of 10,000 for season tickets and a local fan-base of at least 100,000, so the potential is significant. But space is tight at White Hart Lane and Tottenham would have to buy up property around the ground and turn the pitch 90 degrees. They expect to make an announcement before December.

Kemsley is an interesting character. He is a self-made property millionaire, a genuine Spurs fan and close friend of Harry Redknapp, with whom he once owned a racehorse. It is believed that moves to replace Jol were inspired by Kemsley, who has made his misgivings about the manager known to Levy many times. The two of them can make board decisions for the football club, independently of the plc, from which Kemsley resigned last year to give him a free rein on the football side.

Underpinning their football decisions is Commoli. He was a scout for Arsenal in France, but not as influential in uncovering players for Arsenal as Spurs made out when he joined. He was briefly director of football at St Etienne before joining Spurs when Frank Arnesen left for Chelsea, but he never had the authority or knowledge of the Dane. Jol does not rate Commoli or his signings - among them Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Ricardo Rocha and, most controversially, Zokora.

It was Commoli who told Levy that the club could dispense with Carrick because he believed Zokora was a better player. Carrick was happy at Spurs in April 2006, when he went to talk to Levy about a new contract, with two years left on his existing one and his World Cup inclusion imminent. He had been Tottenham's best player and was central to Jol's plans.

How negotiations unfolded, then collapsed, provides a fascinating insight into the running of the club. Carrick was on £25,000 a week and started talks by asking for £40,000, expecting to negotiate. He was laughed out of the room and told to re-sign on Spurs' terms, or be sold.

Carrick, who wanted to stay, felt unwanted. He then discovered Sir Alex Ferguson was interested in him. At that season's Premier League annual meeting, David Gill of Manchester United put in a £10million bid and Levy dismissed it. The club denied at the time there had been an approach and have always insisted that Carrick was sold because he wanted to leave. He did, in the end - but only because he was so disenchanted at the way he had been treated. Before he went, Levy made a lame and late increased offer of £50,000 a week. It was a prize piece of botched dealing.

Meanwhile, Levy had negotiated a new contract with Jol, who was unaware of the Carrick situation. The manager was livid when he found out he had committed himself to the club and simultaneously lost his main midfielder to such a formidable rival. When he was lumbered with Commoli's choice of replacement, Zokora, he was even less impressed.

Aggravation worsened as the season progressed. Kemsley was not happy with Jol's tactics; Jol was growing weary of the interference. There was great discomfort at board level when Chelsea won at White Hart Lane in an FA Cup quarter-final replay. Only a second successive fifth place in the league temporarily soothed Jol's detractors.

But it all bubbled up in the summer, when Jol and Levy had a major row over signings. Jol, who has been desperate for a left-winger for two years, had earlier been thwarted when Levy intervened in the almost-completed purchase of Stewart Downing, and insisted Spurs pay in instalments. The deal fell through. Jol was further frustrated when he sought to buy the player he considered an important piece in his jigsaw: Berbatov's compatriot and friend, Martin Petrov, from Atletico Madrid. Levy and Kemsley apparently have a phobia about older players and considered the 28-year-old Petrov past it.

There have been several other points of disagreement between Jol and Levy, who fancies himself as something of a hot-shot at the negotiating table.

Jol wants a left back but has been continually thwarted in his efforts and has often had to play the right-footed Paul Stalteri out of position. There are other gaps he is keen to address but has not been able to. Aaron Lennon, for instance, while dazzling in bursts, does not fit the Jol profile of a hard-working professional; nor does Jermain Defoe, whose scoring record away from home (three last season) is not impressive. As a replacement for Carrick, Tottenham might have signed the Cameroon international Geremi, from Chelsea, but instead he went to Newcastle and is already their captain.

Several agents told The Observer that Levy was difficult to do business with. 'He doesn't really understand the rules of engagement or football itself,' one said. 'He has an over-inflated view of himself as a negotiator because he once sold three players to Portsmouth for £7m and thought he was a genius in the transfer market.'

If there is any doubt that Jol is the innocent party in this ongoing mess it is not shared by influential and respected voices in football - including his rivals Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson. Wenger, who has enjoyed virtually unfettered control for more than a decade at Arsenal, accused Tottenham of impatience last week. Ferguson expanded on that theme to The Observer

'The difference between Martin Jol and me is that I've been here 20 years,' he said. 'When I first came to this club I faced all that expectation too, because we hadn't won the league in umpteen years. Martin is new at the club and Spurs haven't won the league for 45 years, so that's quite a lot of expectation, and you are not surprised at the criticism. You are only surprised at the way it all started.

'I was pleased to see Daniel Levy come out in support of him because [Jol] is a decent guy. His work in Holland was outstanding, and he did a good job for Tottenham last year. Knee-jerk reactions don't necessarily come from the board, the press play a part too, but still you wonder where these things start.

'In modern football you get in some of these directors' rooms and boardrooms and you see four or five directors and about 35 hangers-on. And they've all got a voice. That's often where the seed is sown. When I first came to United they had something they called the second board. They used to meet every Monday afternoon in the Grill Room at Old Trafford, assess results, get the axe out for Alex Ferguson, that type of thing. That's the kind of rubbish you had even 20 years ago. I think a lot of clubs have a similar problem - it sort of comes with the corporate hospitality packages nowadays - and perhaps Tottenham suffer from it more than most.'

Jol is the most popular manager at White Hart Lane since Keith Burkenshaw, more popular even than Glenn Hoddle and Osvaldo Ardiles, neither of whom could translate their status as great Spurs players to management. Yet Jol has had to endure an attritional and unsubtle campaign against his authority at the very time when he might be able to make a breakthrough in restoring the fortunes of what was once a great club.

'It's unbelievable that he's under pressure,' said Carrick, a Jol supporter, ahead of today's game. 'Absolutely unbelievable.

I-Bleed-White

Wow...that puts alot of things into the light if it's true. The greatest criticisms of Jol all down to the board. More importantly Levy. I will hold my judgement on them just buying Spurs to make a profit but letting Carrick go because Zokora would be better. Treating him like **** till the Spurs fans went mad and then said he wanted to leave.

Thought Petrov is over the hill at 28. He would have been the bit of expierience our team needed in midfield. Messing up a likely Downing transfer. I give abuse to my united supporter mates about being owned by Glazers who just want their greenbacks but it now appears that the Spurs board are just as bad if not worse.

Gone are the days of clubs being run for enjoyment of genuine support. Graeme Souness was trying to make a good point about the horriable effect money has had on the premiership before the match yesterday noting at how we used to laugh at the Spanish and Italians giving managers the boot after 3 games and how players can initiate their own transferrs but that prat Jamie Redknapp (the ultimate commercialised footballer one of the original rock stars of football) cut across with some un-thought out statement along the lines of "Well that football today Graeme innit" Jamie Oliver wannabe prat.

This is a topic thats brushed over far to often in todays game. There are far too may people outside players and managers that stand to make a pay load off the game and that takes alot away from it.

el diablo

very interesting article... and just signed your petition, I-Bleed-White.:)

I-Bleed-White

el diablo wrote:

very interesting article... and just signed your petition, I-Bleed-White.:)

Thanks El Diablo. Good to see some sanity left in the SSC.

Wendell Gee

Corn all cut. Can join the debate now. Had time to ponder all this. The above article comes from a pro- Jol veiwpoint, but rings true. Anyone read Alan Greene in the Examiner on Monday. Told a yarn of meeting Levy a few years ago for advice on an internet related business project he was starting with Harry Harris. Called Levy a spiv, said he brought his secretary along, and chatted to her during what was meant to be a business meeting. Jol is a visibly decent guy, and has the players. that was a good performance at Old Trafford, and no doubt the introduction of Bale has been significant in providing balance in the side. Rocha has grown during his run, and should feature a lot this season. Huddlestone really needs to sharpen up, but this level is just so quick, it takes time. Young players make mistakes, and we have a young squad, that's the short and long of it. I signed the Jol petition last week. He shouldn't be in danger, but this whole saga may strengthen his position. We need a new director of Football Commoli is not as important as Jol and should have to go. If the board are going to back Jol, this is what they must do to prove it.

galinka

Wendell Gee wrote:

Anyone read Alan Greene in the Examiner on Monday. Told a yarn of meeting Levy a few years ago for advice on an internet related business project he was starting with Harry Harris. Called Levy a spiv, said he brought his secretary along, and chatted to her during what was meant to be a business meeting.

I mentioned this on the COYS website on Monday and the general feeling there was that you could not believe Alan Green - even though the site generally is anti-Levy.

I'm inclined to ignore most things in the paper - except final scores!!

Snake Plisken

You see the problem for Jol is that he was Frank Arnersen's man, Frank wanted to put Martin in charge straight away but Levy and the board wanted a high profile manange like Santini, so the board got their wish but Frank got Martin in as he probably knew in his own mind that Santini mightn't work out. But once Frank headed over to Chelscum and we got Commoli in as DOF, then I think the writing was on the wall for Martin, as it looks like they don't have a great relationship, so Commoli wants to put his own man in as manager. Martin will leave but its a question of when.

Snake