BBC: Paulo Dybala to Tottenham deal is OFF after Juventus pull plug

Transfer window winds are fickle, my friends, and it pains me to say that the Ornacle is giving us some bad news. A tweet from the BBC’s David Ornstein, the gold standard when it comes to football reporting, says that the deal that would’ve taken Pauly Dybala from Juventus to Tottenham Hotspur is now OFF after Juventus pulled the plug on the deal.

We don’t know exactly why this deal fell apart... or maybe we do, because Gianluca DiMarzio is also reporting that while an agreement between the two clubs is close, Juventus were also considering using Dybala in a swap deal to bring in Mauro Icardi.

This would suck, but let’s also remember that the Dybala deal was essentially the gravy on top of what was already a pretty freakin’ good window. Spurs still expect to sign Ryan Sessegnon and Giovani Lo Celso today, and there might also be a few extra surprises. In the meantime we’ll see if we can’t figure out why the hell this thing fell apart.

UPDATE [6:39ET]: Maybe it’s not so off after all. Dan Kilpatrick in the Evening Standard is saying the deal is not “off” per se but is hanging by a thread due to those pesky image rights. The implication from elsewhere online is that those are really difficult because those kinds of image rights deals are not legally recognized in the UK, thus it could set precedent for future arrangements.