Tottenham chairman and co-owner Daniel Levy is one of football’s very few bona fide superstar executives, alongside the likes of Florentino Perez and Nasser Al-Khelaifi.
But Levy, who owns just over 25 per cent of Tottenham through holding company ENIC, is an outlier in more ways than one, both within the Premier League and the wider football finance ecosystem.
Unlike Florentino Perez of Real Madrid and Nasser Al-Khelaifi of Paris Saint-Germain, he doesn’t control one of the planet’s most successful clubs.
As a business, Spurs are a behemoth. Their recently filed accounts for 2023-24 confirm that, even with no European football of any description, only eight clubs worldwide earned more revenue across the season.
But as a sporting institution? Unlike Real and PSG, the North Londoners are perma-underachievers.
Since 2008, when they last won a trophy, Tottenham have spent £3.286bn on wages and amortisation, which is how clubs account for transfer fees over a period of time.
Daniel Levy apologists rightly point out that figure, while huge, is less than their peers in the so-called Big Six, who have spent more and, as you’d expect, have won more – a lot more.
But the law of averages would suggest that, if Levy had the requisite footballing acumen, that level of spending would have yielded a far greater share of the trophies.
The flipside, of course, is that Levy and ENIC – who are now controlled by Joe Lewis’ family trust following his conviction for insider trading last year – have dragged Spurs into a new era financially.
While they are a regular source of ridicule from both rivals and the club’s own fanbase alike, Tottenham’s commercial operation and brand building are probably the best in world football.
They don’t have the same global profile as, say, Liverpool or Manchester United but deliver outsized returns in sponsorship, merchandise sales and events at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
They’ve achieved the dream of every club’s corporate arm: decoupling commercial income from on-pitch results. It’s at £245m in their latest accounts, 316 per cent higher than the last season at White Hart Lane.
And with a license to double the number of non-football events at the stadium now in effect, expect that figure to continue defying gravity in seasons to come, regardless of whether they end the trophy drought.
Unless Ange Postecoglou oversees an unlikely triumph in the Europa League, that streak won’t end in 2024-25.
But – and this will, totally justifiably, enrage Tottenham fans – it is almost because of, not in spite of, Spurs’ lack of footballing success that Levy has earned superstardom among the game’s executives.
That the former city banker has turned Spurs 2.0 into a money-printing machine without the prestige that silverware brings is really quite extraordinary. In that sense, Levy more then earns his huge salary.
And given that Tottenham are for sale, either via the form of a minority investment or full takeover, it will be Levy’s management of the club that makes it such an attractive option for buyers.
And, how ever long it takes, Spurs with new owners will have the Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) capacity and revenue base to spend like a genuine super club.
But for that to happen, Levy will have to budge on his price. £3.75bn is said to be his valuation of Tottenham, with any offers for a full or partial takeover seemingly required to meet that rate.
Where Tottenham rank among most valuable sports teams
Qatar, either through state-sponsored PSG ownership group Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) or the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, have long been touted as potential buyers.
And developments in recent days have shed some light on the Gulf state’s grand vision in football.
Have Qatar Sports Investments given up on Tottenham after negotiations with Daniel Levy?
A secretive process that has been going on for much longer than when it was announced last April, Qatar Sports Investments is one of the few groups known to have been part of the Spurs equity auction.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi has been reliably reported to have held several rounds of talks with Levy about buying into Tottenham. Both parties admit the meetings took place but deny that investment was on the agenda.
As well as owning PSG, QSI own a significant minority stake in Portuguese side Braga.
Now, in news that could be read one of two ways from a Spurs perspective, Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinnman has relayed that QSI are in advanced talks to take over Spanish second-tier side Malaga.
And in more recent days, several outlets have reported that negotiations with the club’s existing owners are in the final stages and a deal worth around £85m could potentially be complete within days.
So, what might be the significance for Tottenham?
One way of looking at it is they have turned their attention away from discussions with Levy in favour of the Segunda Division club.
Conversely, it may be that their interest in Malaga is a tacit admission that they are simply disregarding UEFA’s rules on dual ownership of clubs, which would leave the door open for investment in Spurs.
Under the current system, clubs under the same ownership umbrella are not allowed to compete simultaneously in the same UEFA competition, i.e. the Champions League or Europa League.
But UEFA have given temporary reprieves to some clubs operating multi-club networks in the past – and there have been suggestions that the governing body could scale back the conflict of interest rules.
If that is the case, a QSI takeover or minority investment in Tottenham could see them become part of an operation that includes PSG, Braga and Malaga, rivalling the game’s biggest multi-club networks.
Of the ‘Big Six’, Spurs and Arsenal are the only clubs who are neither part of a multi-club model nor actively seeking to establish one.
Liverpool owners FSG could rival QSI for Malaga, with impact for Spurs
One interesting subplot in this story is the recently emerged interest of Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the Boston-based owners of Liverpool, in Malaga too.
FSG have been looking to launch a multi-club network since Michael Edwards’ return to the club as CEO last summer and, it is reported, a Liverpool delegation has visited Malaga with a view to a deal.
Illustrating the extent of shared ownership in the modern game, FSG are part-owned by private equity firm Arctos, who also own a stake in PSG, whose owners QSI are their rivals in the Malaga auction.
So, Tottenham’s Premier League rivals Liverpool could theoretically have an indirect effect on their future ownership through a bidding war with QSI.
Premier League takeover saturation could delay Tottenham sale
In related news, Brentford’s Matthew Benham has become the latest Premier League club owner to explore a minority sale, with various parties reportedly interested in the Bees at his £400m valuation.
Crystal Palace, West Ham, Wolves, Bournemouth are also seeking minority investment in what is fast becoming a saturated market that favours buyers, not sellers.
With a £3.75bn valuation, far higher than any of those clubs, Spurs would represent a riskier option for a minority investor, although likely the one with the biggest upside.
Previously, Chelsea’s Todd Boehly has held talks with Levy about acquiring the club outright in tandem with his investment partner Jonathan Goldstein, who is a Tottenham fan.
That opportunity could potentially re-emerge if Boehly loses the boardroom tug of war with Clearlake Capital at Chelsea.
