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Shakhtar Donetsk chief executive Sergei Palkin has accused Tottenham of “disrespect” in providing “peanuts” in negotiations for winger Manor Solomon and threatened to take the club to court if a solution is soon discovered.
Solomon joined Spurs in a flexible move last July by taking advantage of a FIFA resolution that forced foreign players in Russia and Ukraine to unilaterally suspend their contracts following the outbreak of war in the region.
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Shakhtar is one of several clubs that have challenged adjustments to Annex 7 of the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, however, after appeals were rejected through FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the Ukrainian club filed a lawsuit opposing express clubs who believed they had obtained “unjust enrichment” through the clause.
Solomon was under contract with Shakhtar until the end of 2023, meaning Spurs would have had to pay some sort of transfer fee if Annex 7 hadn’t existed. Shakhtar paid Maccabi Petah Tikva €6. 5 million ($7. 05 million) for the winger in January 2019. and had a market price of €20 million.
ESPN revealed in October that the two clubs were in talks about a conceivable refund amount, but negotiations fell through after a deal fell through.
“Since October we have been negotiating diligently with Tottenham,” Palkin told ESPN.
“But in the end, Tottenham acted in a way that reflects the principles of justice and fairness. In this situation, we feel a lack of respect from Tottenham.
“If you dig into my emotions those months that we haven’t been through. Indeed, we would like to call on Spurs chairman Daniel Levy to act with intelligent faith and stand up for the shared values of the European football family to find a fair way to compensate us. In this transfer, what are we talking about?
Negotiations were ongoing between Palkin and Rebecca Caplehorn, Tottenham’s director of football management and governance, with Spurs agreeing to pay 10% of any sale payments if Solomon left the club. Solomon has played six times for Tottenham, having been out since October due to a knee injury.
“They’ve proposed anything, but what they’ve proposed is rarely even very serious,” Palkin said. “It’s a small thing to show that they’re willing to give anything, but it’s not comparable to what they’ve been given. “.
“A club like Tottenham can’t behave like this. It’s a very sensible club and known all over the world and to behave like that is very strange.
“We negotiated with them for many months, we had a good reputation and honestly we didn’t ask them for a huge amount of money. We didn’t even ask them for money. We said, ‘Okay, give us a promotional payment for the future. ‘
“When you get a loose player and that player is worth €20 million (the transfer market undervalues players) it means something. This means that we have evolved and invested in this player. We have to respect our work. If we all say we’re a family circle of footballers and then they let you out a player and you don’t listen to our team, that’s not fair.
“To me, 20%, 30% would be value. In that situation, that would be value. “
Shakhtar have taken legal action following the loss of another player, Mateus Tetê, who was on loan first to Lyon and then Galatasaray.
They are suing Lyon as Palkin claims to have pocketed €1m when the winger arrived at Leicester on a new loan in January, while there is another case that opposes Tetê and Galatasaray together after joining the Turkish side on the August 7 schedule.
Tetê had a contract with Shakhtar until the end of 2023. A hearing date in both cases has not yet been set.
Palkin is willing to go to court again, but believes the Spurs are acting with intelligent religion toward a team looking to continue operating in a war zone.
“We’re going to take legal action against the Spurs if necessary,” Palkin said. “But anyway, the explanation for why I’m nice to the Spurs president is because he’s going to lend us a hand and help us.
“We are at war in the country and they pay attention to us. When the war started in our country, the entire democratic world supported us. I appeal to this kind of morality to help us.
“But anyway, in our conversations with FIFA, yes, we lost at CAS and it’s complicated to fight the system. But in any case, we know that if clubs get something for free, it’s unjust enrichment.
“We will go to court and do everything we can to get some kind of refund because we are investing a lot of money in the players and it is not imaginable to have this kind of situation. We want to percentage our disorders and get assistance from the clubs. If FIFA and the ECA say that we are one family circle in football, then we deserve to be a family circle and not like this. “
A Tottenham spokesperson told ESPN: “We made a donation to the Shakhtar Foundation after last summer’s friendly and we continue to discuss this scenario with them, but not through the press.
The two clubs played a friendly match in August that raised £505,000 for the Shakhtar Social Foundation to launch projects and help those affected by the war.
FIFA sources reiterated to ESPN that the player scenario is judged on a case-by-case basis so that players cannot automatically leave with a flexible transfer.
Several changes have also been made to Annex 7 taking into account the monetary fitness of Ukrainian clubs. These include players and staff who wish to use Schedule 7, who will need to notify their team in writing by July 1, and those who have extended their contract. After March 7, 2022, they can no longer suspend their agreements.