Football Glossary: (to) Tap up

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(to) Tap Up

To illegally or secretly approach another team’s player in order to try to persuade them to join your club. Clubs are not supposed to talk to a player who is under contract at another club – they must ask permission from their club first. But tapping up another player is still very common in football.

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  • Example: Tottenham have accused Manchester United of tapping up their player. They think Manchester United didn’t follow the rules about buying a player and met Berbatov secretly (2009).
  • Example: What is tapping up? Dark side of football transfer dealings revealed after Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk embarrassment (Daily Mirror, June 9 2017).

More Vocabulary

Let us know if you hear this phrase or how this might be said in another language by dropping us a line at: admin@languagecaster.com. You can also find many more examples of soccer vocabulary by going to our football cliches page here and our huge football glossary here.

Learn English Through Football
Learn English Through Football
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I was born and brought up near Chester in the north west of England. I have always loved playing and talking about sport, especially football!
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Football GlossaryEpisode 328