Tottenham complete Van der Vaart signing

Van der Vaart was a surprise buy by Tottenham on deadline day (GETTY IMAGES)

Tottenham today confirmed the £8million signing of Rafael van der Vaart from Real Madrid after the Premier League gave them the green light to add the Holland midfielder to their squad.

Spurs had been sweating on clearance to bring the 27-year-old to White Hart Lane after technical difficulties hampered their efforts to submit the relevant paperwork for the move before yesterday's 6pm transfer deadline.

But after investigating the club's claims that there were difficulties involving computer servers used in the transaction between themselves and Real, the Premier League ratified the signing.

The Premier League said in a statement: "The Premier League can confirm the transfer of Rafael van der Vaart's registration from Real Madrid to Tottenham Hotspur."

Tottenham announced: "We are delighted to announce that we have reached agreement with Real Madrid for the transfer of Rafael van der Vaart."

Manager Harry Redknapp last night revealed he was alerted to Van der Vaart's availability just two hours before the window closed.

Redknapp also claimed the player had been set to join Bayern Munich for £18million on Monday but the move broke down.

However, that was categorically denied this afternoon by the Spanish giants, with sports director Miguel Pardeza telling his club's official website, www.realmadrid.com: "It is absolutely false that Real Madrid received a 21million euro offer from Bayern Munich for Van der Vaart.

"In fact, the German team never showed an interest to sign the player, so the allegations made in England have greatly surprised us."

Van der Vaart's transfer is not the first to be assessed by the Premier League over whether a deal has been completed before the deadline.

In February 2009, they took a day to sanction Andrei Arshavin's move to Arsenal.

A year earlier, Manchester City were unable to formally announce the signing of Benjani Mwaruwari's from Portsmouth for almost a week due to a wrangle over whether the paperwork had been submitted before the deadline.

But they needed to make a decision on Van der Vaart by 5pm today, as that was the cut-off point for clubs to submit their 25-man senior squads for the first half of the Barclays Premier League season.