As one of the Premier League’s biggest PSR advocates, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy will be unsettled by the latest developments in the world of football finance.
Levy, who owns 29 per cent of Spurs as well being the club’s most senior executive, has long steered the North London club in a self-sufficient direction.
Spurs made a combined profit of £434m between 2009 and 2019, before they moved into the sparkling Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Since then, the club have posted four losses in a row adding up to £307m, although that period included the pandemic which obliterated Spurs’ £118m-plus annual matchday income.
However, profit is essentially an abstract concept in accounting. It includes elements such amortisation and depreciation, which are not cash expenses.
PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules – or Financial Fair Play, in old money) also does not count things such as depreciation on the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, currently over £70m per year.
With that and other PSR-deductible expenses factored in, there are only a handful of Premier League clubs that have more PSR capacity (AKA ability to spend within PSR) than Spurs.
And various metrics show that, as a business at least, Spurs are among the best run clubs in Europe.
The last thing that ENIC and Levy need therefore is disruption to the existing financial rules.
The Leicester City PSR ruling and its impact on Tottenham
Many commentators were confident that Leicester City were set to join Everton and Nottingham Forest in the unfortunate group of clubs charged by the Premier League for breaching PSR in 2022-23.
However, the Premier League have now released a statement confirming that Leicester had been cleared by an independent appeal board.
As has been well documented, Leicester have admitted that they exceeded the three-year £105m PSR threshold by £24m, giving them a total PSR loss of £129m.
But the Foxes have essentially been cleared on a technicality because they moved their accounting period back and had technically already been relegated by their year-end, 30th June 2023.
As such, the appeal board ruled that the Premier League did not have jurisdiction to charge Leicester as they would had it been Tottenham or any other top flight club in their situation.
The ruling has sparked outrage among clubs in the Premier League and EFL, threatening to undermine the PSR system entirely at a time when it is perpetually under the microscope.
One excerpt from the Premier League’s response to the verdict will be of particular interest to Spurs:
“If the Appeal Board is correct, its decision will have created a situation where any club exceeding the PSR threshold could avoid accountability in these specific circumstances. This is clearly not the intention of the rules.
“It is of critical importance that the Premier League is able to enforce its rules consistently to maintain the principle of fairness. The League will now consider what further action it can take to ensure this is the case.”
Levy and ENIC are actually among the least rich owners in the Premier League, especially when compared to their peers in the so-called ‘Big Six’.
At present, they can compete with clubs whose owners are far wealthier because the PSR system acts as an anchor to the likes of Newcastle United.
Only 14 clubs need to vote to remove PSR for it to be scrapped and it the Leicester case further erodes faith in the system, there is a greater chance of that happening – to Spurs’ detriment.
Spurs could flourish under new PSR system
Spurs’ cost control is very attractive to investors and the club have the lowest wages to turnover ratio in the Premier League.
Only Liverpool and the two Manchester clubs have greater annual revenues, and Spurs’ is rising the quickest than any of their rivals’.
As Levy is looking for investment in Spurs and values the club at £3.75bn, these achievements will be a major selling point.
They are also factors that mean Tottenham are likely to thrive when the Premier League moves to a squad cost ratio system from next season.
Mirroring the principles of UEFA’s PSR system, the Premier League are expected to limit clubs’ spending on wages, transfers and agent fees to 85 per cent of revenue.
Spurs’ revenue last term was £550m, giving them a PSR budget of £467.5m.
For context, Spurs their expense last season (wages and amortisation) were £282m. This would give them more wriggle room than almost any other club in the new PSR era.
Whether the owners – and perhaps new minority investors – are willing and able to bankroll greater expenditure is a separate issue.