Daniel Levy wanted to get rid of a young for just £600,000 according to former manager Tim Sherwood.
Barring loan spells, Kane has played for boyhood club Spurs for his entire career and is now one of the greatest ever players and all-time top goalscorer having overtaken Jimmy Greaves’ record this season.
However, his future in north London is unclear with his contract up in 2024 and much speculation linking him with a move to , especially after Spurs failed to qualify for European football for the first time in 14 years.
Tottenham owner and chairman is incredibly steadfast against selling the star striker to a rival but it’s been revealed that that wasn’t always the case.
According to Sherwood, toward the end of the 2013/14 season Levy was unconvinced by the then 20-year-old and even indirectly suggested to the manager that he should be starting notorious Spurs flop Roberto Soldado instead.
He told : ‘I decided after a couple of weeks that it was the right time to throw him [Kane] into the firing line. One Friday I walked off the training pitch and told Harry that he was going to start the game tomorrow and he looked at me as if to say “yeah, about time”, and I liked that about him.
‘As soon as I got inside Franco Baldini, the technical director, came over to me and said, “the chairman wants to have a chat with you”. So we sit down in the office and Daniel Levy asks me “what’s the team tomorrow?”.
‘I talked him through it and as soon as I got to the end and said Harry Kane he instantly said, “not Roberto Soldado or [Emmanuel] Adebayor?”. He’d never asked me for the team before so he’s asking me because he’s got wind that Harry Kane is playing and he wanted to question me.
‘He said that I was devaluing a player [Soldado] that they’d paid £29million for and I said to him, “it never even crossed my mind that I was devaluing, I want to win the football match, do you?”.
‘He proceeded to tell me that they didn’t think Kane was Premier League standard, and I said, “who thinks he’s not Premier League standard?”, and he said “Franco”.
‘Franco said, making an inverted commas gesture, “we’re looking for Champions League players”, and that they should let Harry go somewhere else. They suggested letting him go to Leicester as they had bid £600,000.
‘I said, “he’s playing tomorrow, so we’ll see how he does and take it from there’, and he came into the team and scored in his first three games and never looked back.’
Kane scored his first Premier League goal on his full debut in a 5-1 win against Sunderland and has now scored 280 goals for the Lilywhites, as well as a record 55 goals for England, making Levy and Baldini’s comments all the more laughable.
‘If he [Levy] would have told me that I couldn’t play him I would have said, “well you go and stand in the dugout tomorrow then”, and Daniel knows I would have said it,’ Sherwood added.
‘Harry Kane has always had ability, whether it be dropping into the number 10 position or staying up and scoring goals as the number nine, his knowledge of the game was fantastic and he pretty much had everything, but unfortunately he kept getting loaned out.
‘He wasn’t getting appreciated – he went to Millwall, Leyton Orient, Norwich and Leicester, and not one of those managers said he’d become a Premier League player.’
, .
,  and .
