Former Tottenham Hotspur manager, Andre Villas-Boas (or AVB) has now spoken out against club chairman Daniel Levy and the relationship they had in North London.
Villas-Boas joined Tottenham in 2012 after he had been let go by Chelsea, replacing the popular figure of Harry Redknapp in the Lilywhite hot seat.
However, he only managed 80 matches in charge and was sacked at the end of 2013 having won a little over half his games as manager.
The Portuguese coach has gone on to rebuild his career after a few troublesome years in London with spells in Russia, China and, most recently, France.
Eight years after he was let go by Levy, it appears there may still be some hard feelings from AVB as he told The Athletic of their strained working relationship.
Villas-Boas claimed that Levy wanted him to leave and take the PSG job because it would have resulted in a £15m pay-out for the North London club, but AVB didn’t want to leave.
He said: “I understood Tottenham wanted me to go to Paris. I had an offer from Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the (2012-13) season.
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“But I said, ‘No’. My clause for leaving Tottenham, which (chairman Daniel) Levy was negotiating with Paris, was £15 million. Chelsea had paid €15 million for me and in Tottenham, it was £15 million. And Levy was of course negotiating this.”
He added: “So I didn’t have the best of relationships with Daniel. We were correct throughout but we were not in love with each other and I think they wanted me to accept the offer.
“But I wanted to stay. I had a great time in London. The team was good. I didn’t feel at that time that Paris was what I wanted for my career so I decided to risk on that one more year and for me, I take things a lot personally.
“I have a different vision of football and, for me, whenever somebody declines something that’s normally better — be it contract wise or the possibility of you winning — for me, you are entitled to a contract renewal.
“That’s how I see things. It wasn’t the case. And that led to a bad, bad animosity between us. To the point where it was December and there were no conditions for us to continue working and we reached an agreement to leave.”
On getting the sack, AVB said: “Although we lost heavily to Liverpool (5-0) we were on more points than the season we beat the points record. But the environment wasn’t there and it was best for both parties.”
Spurs Web Opinion:
I always felt sorry for AVB at both Chelsea and Spurs. I feel like he was never given much of a chance at either club and he certainly got the rough end of the deal when it came to transfers in North London. I hope to see him back in the Premier League one day but doubt he will return.
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