Everton to avoid paying Tottenham £10m as Dele appearance clause set to expire

Everton will now not need to pay an extra £10m for Dele Alli as the midfielder can no longer accumulate enough appearances to trigger a clause negotiated with Tottenham Hotspur.

Dele moved to Goodison Park from Spurs in January 2022, with a deal between the Premier League rivals stipulating that the Blues would need to pay £10m when the England international reached 20 appearances for the club before the end of his two-and-a-half-year contract, which is due to expire in the summer.

But Dele, who is currently sidelined through injury, has made only 13 appearances for Everton, and none this season. And with just six games of the 2023-24 campaign remaining, the 28-year-old, who will guest as a pundit on Sky Sports' coverage of the Blues' trip to Chelsea tonight, is now unable to hit the tally of 20, which would trigger a lucrative payment for Tottenham.

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In November, Everton boss Sean Dyche revealed the club's sporting director Kevin Thelwell had talked with Spurs about potentially renegotiating a deal for Dele. "Kev has had a couple of phone calls just lightly in the background: 'Look, where do you see it?’ But nothing that has changed at the moment," said Dyche.

Dele's last Everton appearance was in August last year. He endured a tough spell on loan to Turkish side Besiktas last season, before going public in the summer with a candid admission about mental health problems and a sleeping-pill addiction.

In an emotional interview with The Overlap, a YouTube channel and podcast hosted by Sky Sports’ Gary Neville, Dele also opened up on his troubled upbringing. He