Why Nottingham Forest have not launched official complaint against Tottenham for Morgan Gibbs-White talks
Football finance expert Stefan Borsen has now shed light on why Nottingham Forest have not launched an official complaint or a legal challenge against Tottenham Hotspur over Morgan Gibbs-White, despite threatening to do so.
Nottingham Forest are continuing to fight to stop Tottenham from landing Gibbs-White for £60m after the Lilywhites met his release clause over a week ago.
Some sources believe that Spurs now need to pay more than £60m to land Gibbs-White, who featured for Forest in their first pre-season friendly of the summer against Monaco on Saturday.
While it was initially rumoured that the two clubs were mired in a legal battle, it has emerged over recent days that Forest have neither complained to the Premier League nor initiated legal proceedings against Spurs.
Nottingham Forest may struggle to prove an illegal approach
Borson has now provided possible reasons why the Midlands club have not made any move against Tottenham Hotspur, other than sending a warning letter to the North London club.
He suggested that Forest may find it very difficult to prove that Spurs made an illegal approach to Gibbs-White and that the Lilywhites induced a breach of contract from the player.
When asked about the Gibbs-White saga, Borson told Football Insider: “There are two bits of press on it. One was in The Times that said that the formal complaint had been made, which is a big deal. And then the Sky one then saying it’s completely wrong and actually no formal complaint has been made. And I think because the Sky story came afterwards, you have to assume that actually that’s right and that no formal complaint has been made.
“If a formal complaint was made by Nottingham Forest, it can go one of two ways. Either they can ask the Premier League to investigate a breach of the Premier League rules, and the Premier League would be obliged to investigate it, especially in the scenario where, on the face of it, Spurs have done it.
“If the Premier League believed that they had done it, that would end up with a charge. And the potential consequences of a charge would be a disciplinary and all of the possible sanctions that come from that.
“The other possibility is that Nottingham Forest could commence an arbitration against Spurs and seek damages for the breach that’s occurred. Now that’s clearly a difficult thing to both prove that they breached, and induced the breach of contracts, but also to show actual loss.
“So, at this point, and if they do not sell him to Tottenham for £60m, what is their loss? At the moment, they have no loss and therefore they have no claim.
“So that’s if it went down the formal route and if it’s gone through the informal route, and they just sent them a warning letter to say, we think that you’ve induced our player to breach his contract via a breach of the confidentiality clause, then it’s not really a big deal at all because the letter is just a shot across the bows. I mean, it has no power.
“And then you’re into the realm of what do Spurs do in terms of the player? And I think Spurs’ position, probably as we sit here now, is to say, we have triggered the release clause and therefore we believe that under the terms of the contract, the player should be available to leave.”
What Tottenham think about the Morgan Gibbs-White situation?
Over the last couple of days, it has emerged that Tottenham still expect the Gibbs-White deal to go through despite Forest’s attempts to stop the transfer. Daniel Levy and his legal team are thought to be of the opinion that their activation of the midfielder’s clause was legitimate.
The next 24 hours could be crucial in the Gibbs-White saga as Forest fly out to Portugal for their pre-season training camp today (Monday).
Gibbs-White is expected to travel with the Forest squad, which seems to indicate that a Tottenham transfer is far from imminent. Spurs fans may have to strap in for a long summer saga here.
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