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During his time as Tottenham Hotspur chairman, Daniel Levy built a reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator, and one remarkable story underlines exactly why.

The setting was 2008, with Spurs pushing to compete for Champions League spots alongside the Premier League’s established heavyweights.

As the 2007/08 campaign neared its end, Tottenham completed what was then a blockbuster move for Croatia international midfielder Luka Modric, who became the club’s joint-most expensive signing along with Darren Bent.

With Manchester City and Newcastle United also interested, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy even travelled to Zagreb to wrap up talks and complete the transfer, such was Tottenham’s determination to bring in the midfielder.

Representing the selling club in the deal was Dinamo Zagreb executive Zdravko Mamic, who later recounted his meeting with Levy in an interview with FourFourTwo in October 2019.

"One funny story, but at the same time a story that shows how he protects the interests of his club, is that after we agreed the transfer of Luka [Modric] to Tottenham, I politely asked for five of Luka’s jerseys.

"Levy gave them to me, but the invoice for the transfer, €23m (£16.5m), was minus the value of the jerseys."

Mamic served as Dinamo’s executive director from 2003 to 2016 and oversaw plenty of transfers during that period, but his dealings with Levy are among the ones he remembers most clearly.

"That was quite unbelievable to me. It showed me how to appreciate every penny a club spends."

Mamic is a controversial figure who has had several brushes with the law and was convicted of tax fraud in 2018. To avoid serving a prison sentence in Croatia, he allegedly fled to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he also has citizenship.

Mamic also survived an assassination attempt in 2017, while the former Dinamo chairman was arrested in 2013 after a radio interview in which he launched a tirade against Croatian sports minister Zeljko Jovanovic.

Levy, meanwhile, officially stepped down as Tottenham chairman on September 4, 2025, ending a tenure of almost 25 years in charge.

He remains involved only as a non-executive investor through his family’s equity stake in majority shareholder ENIC.