David Villa is currently on approximately £130k per week at Barcelona, which is a lot of money and probably more than Tottenham Hotspur (or Arsenal) are willing to pay him. Reportedly, those wages have been the major hang-up in Villa's rumored move to a club in England, whether that be Spurs or someone else. It turns out that the problem is more complicated than that, because Villa is actually set to make a heck of a lot more.

MARCA, take it away:

[T]he Spanish player has no intention of losing out financially in the move ... When Barcelona signed him, it was for four seasons, until 2014, during which time he would receive a sum of €7.5 million a year. MARCA has discovered, however, that the club accepted the inclusion of a clause by which it is required to pay €11 million to the footballer in his last season ... He will be looking for a long-term contract to make up for any loss in salary.

WELP. If math and conversions aren't your strong suit, €11 million a year works out to £180k per week, or about what Tottenham are going to pay Gareth Bale if he doesn't move to Real Madrid. If £130k per week was too rich for Daniel Levy's blood, that clause is obviously going to make a move even trickier.

I thought that a potential Villa transfer was a bad deal for Spurs even before we knew about this clause in his contract, so everything I said in that post, I still feel, just more strongly. Villa is a very good player, but one on the decline. Paying a significant transfer fee for him and signing him to a deal of four years or longer is a very bad idea.