Younès Kaboul has been priced at £5m by the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, Daniel Levy, as the defender finds himself in a pickle that has become familiar to some of the club’s players. The centre-back, who was appointed as the captain by Mauricio Pochettino early last season only to go on to endure a nightmare campaign, has one year to run on his contract at White Hart Lane.
Levy often rewards players who add extra years to their deals with pay rises but he can become frustrated when their contracts run down and, by extension, their values on the transfer market drop. Kaboul believes he fell from favour over the second half of last season partly because of his situation – although the club disputes this.
The 29-year-old, who did not feature in the Premier League after 9 November, is keen to move to revive his career but interested clubs have been quoted £5m by Levy, which has discouraged them. This was the figure that Tottenham paid to re-sign Kaboul from Portsmouth in January 2010; Levy regularly seeks to recoup his outlay, at least, when he moves on players.
Kaboul did not agree to extra years on his deal when he was made the captain and there was no incentive for him to do so when he found himself out of the team. Levy’s high valuation of him, though, has made for impasse.
The club has completed the €6m (£4.35m) signing of the 22-year-old Austrian centre-half Kevin Wimmer from FC Köln and he will compete with Jan Vertonghen, Federico Fazio and Eric Dier for a starting place. Levy is ready to listen to offers for another central defender, Vlad Chiriches.
