Sky: Gibbs-White transfer to Spurs DELAYED over “illegal approach” charge

Yesterday, the big football news was that of Tottenham Hotspur meeting the £60m release clause for Nottingham Forest attacking midfielder and England international Morgan Gibbs-White. MGW was set to have a physical at Hotspur Way this morning.

Now according to a Sky Sports reporter, that transfer may be, at least temporarily, on hold after Forest have accused Tottenham of an “illegal approach” for the player.

EXCL:I’m told #nffc consider deal to take Gibbs-White to #thfc is currently OFF - Forest consulting their lawyers over what they believe is an illegal approach. They never gave permission for talks and have cut all comms with Spurs. Unlikely they can block it, but def delayed. — Rob Dorsett (@RobDorsettSky) July 11, 2025

So I’m just a country Tottenham blogger, but this feels weird to me. It’s not clear what exactly Forest are accusing Spurs of. Until more information comes to light, it sounds as if it’s one of two possibilities —

Forest didn’t give permission to Spurs to enter into negotiations for MGW’s transfer fee, or Forest are accusing Spurs of “tapping up” Gibbs-White over personal terms by negotiating with his people before they submitted a bid

The first option would be patently ridiculous — bro has a release clause in his contract! By definition that would mean any club can meet that clause, pay the fee, and come to terms with MGW for a transfer! As for the second point, while I guess “tapping up” is technically still illegal in English football, literally every club does it now — you won’t have to search long in order to find numerous examples of “personal terms agreed” reports before a transfer fee is finalized. It’s literally extremely common business in today’s football market.

Now, maybe there’s something else going on, but like Rob Dorsett tweets, this is likely a delay tactic and not actually something they can prevent Spurs from doing. Which is annoying, but ultimately I’m not(tingham) too worried about it. “Consulting their lawyers” is such a hilarious way of putting out that they’re not pleased with losing Elanga and Gibbs-White in the same window

Nottingham Forest is not mad. Please don’t put in the newspaper that they got mad.

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