I don't think he did it primarily to stop a sell-clause - I think the inactivation of the sell-on clause was either an after-thought or a recognised consequence of the deal, and it certainly wouldn't have stopped us from going ahead with the deal because at the end of the day we wanted Gylfi that badly. The deal was all about landing Gylfi. As has been mentioned by others, the deal - from a footballing perspective - was right for us and our board have an obligation to complete deals which are right for us, not others.
But another way of looking at it is that, when you weigh up the facts, what exactly did we gain from this deal apart from Gylfi? "Apparently" Ben was swapped with Gylfi and Vorm was transferred for £0. So how exactly have we gained there? We could've sold Vorm to a number of clubs for £5-10m - he was hot property with us, a Dutch international and widely admired. So, whatever the sell-on clause, we shot ourselves in the foot if the swap deal was Ben/Gylfi with Vorm being "sold" for nothing - we lost out on quite a few million too. Not just Utrecht.
It's hard luck. We bought Vorm off Utrecht with a sell-on clause. When they sold him, they knew any of the following could happen:
- Vorm gets injured playing for Swansea and never plays again - NO SELL ON CLAUSE
- Vorm runs his contract down at Swansea and leaves on a free - NO SELL ON CLAUSE
- Vorm doesn't play regularly for Swansea and mutually terminates his contract - NO SELL ON CLAUSE
When you sell a player, you lose all rights to his future. There were a number of ways that the sell-on clause would be left inactive, and only one way it could be activated. Unfortunately for Utrecht, Vorm was included in a swap deal and no sell-on clause was activated. Too bad. If they needed the money so bad they should've asked for more when we bought him - not rolled the dice that he'd be sold on for big money. They rolled the dice and lost, primarily, because we got Fabianski for free and didn't need money at the time for a goalkeeper. Had we not got Fabianski for free, I am certain Vorm would have been sold elsewhere for a decent value.
Unfortunate series of events for Utrecht, but a great series of events for us given that Fabianski and Gylfi have been fantastic first team additions.
First of all the the sell on clause would not have been mentioned or discussed in any way because why would it, What we are concerned with is getting Gyfy and because vorm wanted to join spurs anyway the two clubs worked out a deal that suited both clubs not even having a second thought about another club that is totally irrelevant to the deal.......
