Rafael van der Vaart completes last-minute £8m move to Tottenham

Rafael van der Vaart's £8m transfer to Tottenham Hotspur from Real Madrid has been officially ratified by the Premier League, the club's website confirmed this afternoon. It is understood that the delay in confirmation was due to the late arrival of paperwork at the governing body close to yesterday's transfer window deadline. Gloucester Place received a deluge of documentation moments before the window officially closed at 6pm, with the Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, revealing yesterday that the club had only open talks for Van der Vaart at 4pm. Redknapp said: "I thought he was going to Bayern Munich for about £18m and suddenly he became an awful lot cheaper and the chairman came to me and said: 'Look, he's available for around about £8m.' "I felt we'd already got a good squad, it wasn't a case of really being desperate to get anyone in. It was only when he rung me at about four o'clock and told me there was an opportunity here and did I want to do something? "I said: 'I don't really want to spend your money but if you feel you want to have a go then, well, let's push on and give it a crack and see if we can pull it off.'" Van der Vaart becomes Redknapp's second deadline-beating signing after Spurs earlier sealed a loan deal for the Croatia goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa.