Stoke City chief Peter Coates has revealed that tapping up players is a common occurrence in football.
Clubs are prohibited from talking to players from other teams before agreeing on a transfer fee but despite such rules, many have been regularly found guilty of 'tapping up' their transfer targets through the use of agents and intermediates.
Liverpool were recently reported to the FA by Southampton for an illegal approach for defender Virgil van Dijk and while the episode was an embarrassing one for the Reds, Coates believes that the practice of 'tapping-up' is very common in football.
Coates said: "Everyone sounds out players one way or another to see if they would have any interest in coming to their football club.
"There's no point in pursuing something if the player doesn't want to come. You want to find out: 'Would he be interested if we were interested?'
"You could waste so much time and money otherwise. But it's how decent you are about how you do things. You've got to have some sensitivity."cvv
Source: tribalfootball.com