In football’s business sphere, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is universally known as one of the best executives around. For the Spurs fans waiting for a first trophy since 2008, it’s often a different story.
Levy has turned the North London club into a financial monster, of that there is no doubt. With annual revenue of £550m at the last count, turnover is up over 1000 per cent since ENIC bought the club.
Yes, the quantum leap has been the explosion in the value of the Premier League’s TV rights, but Spurs’ income has risen faster than anyone else’s. They are also the most profitable team in the league’s history.
The driving force for Tottenham has, of course, been the move to the new stadium, still rather clunkily called the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the absence of a naming rights deal.
Gate receipts have soared, as has income from events and sponsorship linked to the 62,850-seater arena.
The vision for the new stadium was sold to supporters with the promise of increased investment in recruitment and retention – and ENIC have delivered on that front.
While Spurs are often accused of being too conservative in the transfer market, amortisation (how clubs account for transfer fees over a period of time) and wages have risen in tandem with revenue.
Levy presides over the lowest wages-to-revenue ratio in the Premier League, true, but there an argument that is simply because they are the only ones with a realistic, sustainable business model.
But these KPIs are just hot air to supporters, who measure success via more traditional metrics – points on the board and trophies in the cabinet, not brand partnerships with Netflix’s Squid Game.
Ultimately, the history books don’t lie. In 2024 years of ENIC-Levy ownership, Spurs have won one solitary League Cup.
Tottenham honours
We can debate the root cause, whether it’s cultural, financial, or structural, but the buck stops with Levy, the club’s all-seeing eye who appears to involve himself at every level of the business.
Ange Postecoglou has got Spurs into a good position to end their silverware drought thanks to their 1-0 League Cup semi-final first leg win over Liverpool last night.
But it’s unlikely that lifting England’s least prestigious trophy will scratch the itch for fans, especially given that they are currently 12th in the league, closer in points to the bottom three than top six.
Next Wednesday, Spurs make the short trip to the Emirates Stadium to face Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.
Arsenal have had some fallow seasons in recent history too, but they are currently streets ahead of Spurs on the pitch, accumulating 63 more points than their arch rivals over the last two-and-a-half seasons.
Now, Arteta has highlighted another way in which the Gunners could soon steal a march on their North London neighbours.
Tottenham: the last multi-club holdouts?
When ENIC first invested in Spurs, the Lilywhites weren’t the only club in their football portfolio.
Joe Lewis, who is no longer involved at Spurs following his 2023 conviction for insider trading, and his fellow shareholders held stakes in Rangers, Slavia Prague, AEK Athens, Vicenza and Basel too.
They have long since divested all of those interests, however, with Spurs now their sole focus.
Now, the multi-club model is back in vogue, popularised by the likes of Manchester City’s City Football Group and the sprawling Red Bull network.
As well as City, Chelsea and Manchester United have sister clubs under a multi-club umbrella, while Liverpool are actively exploring the prospect and nearly took over Bordeaux last year.
Arsenal’s owner, Stan Kroenke, owns the MLS franchise Colorado Rapids, although that is more or less an entirely separate business venture as opposed to a cog in a wider multi-club machine.
Living up to his ‘Silent Stan’ moniker, Kroenke has been labelled an absentee landlord by Rapids fans, who are pining for infrastructure upgrades and more ambition in the transfer market.
They are the MLS’s least valuable side.
However, Arteta recently suggested that Arsenal should launch their own multi-club network in order to aid recruitment
The Spaniard recently said: “[The multi-club model] is something that a lot of clubs have at the moment.
“So, that restriction in the country has provoked that many other clubs have now, like sister clubs or multi-club systems to be able to do that.
“So, looking ahead in the future it’s something basically to explore because obviously with the actual system it’s very, very difficult.
“Every club is very different in the way that they are set up and the clubs that they have picked are various.
“But in our way, it’s obviously a decision from our ownership and the board to understand what is the best thing for the club in the future.”
If Arsenal were to launch a multi-club network as Arteta wants, that would leave Spurs as the only remaining club in the so-called ‘Big Six’ without one.
Amanda Staveley investment: A gateway for Spurs to take over a new club?
As part of the deal that brought Lucas Bergvall, Spurs’ goalscorer in last night’s victory, to the club last summer, Levy explored a link-up with the 18-year-old’s now-former club Djurgardens.
But those talks were relating to a strategic cooperation only, not a takeover or investment of any formal kind. In any case, it appears that those discussions came to nothing.
It has been suggested that the appointment of Scott Mun, a former City Football Group executive, as chief football officer could signal interest in the multi-club model from Spurs.
If that is the plan, ENIC would need sufficient liquidity to buy out and fund a sister club.
Leagues in the FA’s Band 2 (Portugal, Holland, Belgium, and Turkey’s top tiers) are the most popular multi-club market at present, so an acquisition probably wouldn’t come cheap.
However, with Amanda Staveley interested in investing in Tottenham, selling a minority stake would raise more than enough capital.