It's well reported that woolwich had the deal agreed 10 days ago, and Palace continued to raise new issues during negotiations. There's also the gooner who had the live event where a text was shown reportedly from Eze stating he was set on a woolwich move over a week before.
On top of that, the MGW saga where everyone clearly negotiated in bad faith only for their owner to swoop in and top up his wages to stay.
Neither collapsed because we wouldn't pay the price. Both collapsed because the other parties had no interest in dealing with us - they were simply using us.
Not really sure how you see that as a Levy defence - being stupid is worse than being cheap. Money can fix being cheap, stupid remains.