Tottenham striker Harry Kane has given the biggest indication yet that he is ready to leave the Premier League club and says he will control his own future.
Kane is reported to have told Spurs he wants to be sold at the end of the season after becoming frustrated at the lack of progress at the north London club.
The England captain, who is 28 in July, still has three years left on his contract and Spurs have been steadfast in their stance that he is not for sale, which means there could be a stand-off.
Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea have been linked with a move for the Premier League’s joint-top goalscorer.
Kane says he needs a conversation with chairman Daniel Levy about his future.
“I think it’s definitely a conversation to be had with the club,” Kane told Gary Neville’s YouTube channel The Overlap. “I want to be playing in the biggest games, the biggest moments.”
“Like, this season I’m there watching the Champions League, watching the English teams in there doing amazing. They are the games that I want to be involved in. I want to be in them games.
“So for sure, it’s a moment in my career where I have to kind of reflect and see where I’m at and have a good, honest conversation with the chairman. I hope that we can have that conversation.
“I’m sure that he’ll want to set out the plan of where he sees it but ultimately it’s going to be down to me and how I feel and what’s going to be the best for me and my career.”
Tottenham will miss out on the Champions League for a second consecutive season and could fail to qualify for any European competition as they sit seventh in the Premier League with one game to go.
Virus impact
On top of losing out on lucrative Champions League income, Spurs have been hit hard financially by the coronavirus pandemic.
Plans to stage NFL games, concerts and other sporting events at the club’s new 62,000 capacity ground, which cost £1.2 billion (1.7 billion dollars) have been delayed due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Selling Kane could help ease Spurs’ financial woes with Levy sure to demand a transfer fee of over £100 million.
“As players you don’t know what the chairman is thinking,” added Kane. “I don’t know, I mean he might want to sell me.
“He might be thinking, ‘If I could get 100 million for you, then why not?’. Do you know what I mean? I’m not going to be worth that for the next two or three years.”
Despite scoring 220 goals for Tottenham, Kane is yet to win any trophies in his career.
He was on the losing side in the 2019 Champions League final and came close to the club’s first league title since 1961 as they challenged at the top of the Premier League in 2015/16 and 2016/17 under Mauricio Pochettino.
But Tottenham are currently heading in the wrong direction. Levy is searching for a new manager after the sacking of Jose Mourinho last month and the squad needs an overhaul.
Kane says he does not want to end his career with regrets.
“I want to be the best that I can be,” he said. “I’ve said before, I’d never say that I’d stay at Spurs for the rest of my career. I’d never say that I would leave Spurs.
“People might look at it as, ‘he’s desperate for trophies, he needs trophies’. I still feel like I’ve still got almost another career to play. I’ve got another seven or eight years.”
