Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is known as a fierce negotiator - and it has now emerged he will go to extreme lengths to stop arch rivals Arsenal doing business.
According to Dick Law, Arsene Wenger's former transfer negotiator, the Spurs chief attempted to insert a clause into a deal to prevent Real Madrid from selling players to Arsenal.
Levy knew he had the upper hand as the Spanish giants closed in on the capture of Gareth Bale from the north London club back in 2013.
At the same time, Arsenal were closing in on the club record signing of Mesut Ozil, off-loaded by Real Madrid to free up funds for the Bale move.
And Law says their move for the German almost fell through due to fears from Madrid's side that Spurs would refuse to sell them Bale.
Law told Goal : “Jose Angel had told Ivan (Gazidis) that Levy had called him and said the one last condition of the Bale deal was Madrid couldn’t sell any players to Arsenal.
“Ivan’s response was that Levy was bluffing because he’d already spent the Bale money. But he still said to me that we couldn’t take a chance and asked if I could get from Munich to London to be in the directors' box because Tottenham were starting to think something was going down.
“So, I got a flight at 11am, changed on the way and when I walked into the directors' box I saw Franco Baldini and Levy and they asked what I was doing. I said it was the derby, I wasn’t going to miss it.”
After their tense north London encounter, it was the Gunners who were celebrating.
They beat their rivals 1-0 at the Emirates and landed Ozil in their club record deal, whilst Spurs were also pleased to net a huge fee for Bale.
Meanwhile, Arsenal could be set to raid Real Madrid again this transfer window.
Reports have emerged claiming they are .
The winger is out of favour at the Bernabeu with Zinedine Zidane willing to let him go.
