This was posted by one of the Spurs Community ITKs today:
"I just wanted to clarify what happened with MGW as there are a lot of incorrect rumours etc still doing the rounds and a few weeks have passed and I think it's now safe to do so.
MGW leaked his release clause, not his agent, not Spurs and not Forrest(just for old times sake). Forest knew he was looking to move and concocted a plan to do a PSR bump with Emirates Marketing Project and McAtee where City paid well over the odds for MGW and McAtee went the other way for a lot more than the eventually bought him for. As soon as it hit the news City dropped any interest they had which wasn't much but if they could get him cheap then it could have been an easy flip for profit if it didn't work out. So now how could City pay £80mil for him when the whole world knew the release clause was £60mil?
From what I was told and shared in the lead up it to it all hitting the fan, was that MGW leaked the release clause to the media so that couldn't happen. Marinakis and Forest found out about it and threatened to tie him up in court for years like what happened with Bosman and he would have been left not playing in a world cup year in the peak of his career. This left him little choice but to sign a new deal on much better terms to make it look like a win for Forest and more importantly Mr Marinakis. It all happened incredibly fast because he was left with little option after he had completely f***ed himself over. Spurs knew nothing of all of this and were as shocked as anyone when the story broke that he had signed a new deal
The release clause he had, had a confidentially clause added. What it basically said was that if a club bid X amount we will accept the offer. The whole point of that confidentiality clause was to protect Forest's interest and I completely understand it, and I will tell you all now there are many many more contracts out there with clauses that are exactly the same as this one(it's not uncommon). You just don't hear about them because, well, they are confidential.
What the clause actually means is....., look we know if a bigger club comes in you may want to go and if that is the case then we will earn a profit and be able to buy a replacement and understand you want to be the best you can be. If that is the case and the magic number is £60 mil they may come in with a bid of £70 mil which benefits the club far more. If we tell everyone the release value they will only ever bid exactly that much. It's one of the reasons clubs make various offers going up in increments up to the price they are actually willing to pay and not go over."