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Daniel Levy - Chairman

Anyone who thinks someone’s gonna buy spurs is on a different planet

like Chelsea the owners think the clubs is worth in excess of a £B (rumoured to be near to £2b) if they were to sell

that means that for the average Billionaire that’s not gonna happen

so you would assume someone would invest maybe 10% of their wealth as a max in a football club (it’s not a stable market)

so you would need someone or a group worth £20b... that’s a very small pool. If it was an individual there’s about 30 people in the world that tick that box plus sovereign wealth that’s difficult to quantify

so why would any of these people buy a football club???
 
galeforce said:
we don't expect them to do us a favour, it's merely that our interests are aligned, the relationship is symbiotic
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Herein lies the biggest problem with the relationship. Of course in the main, our interests are aligned. Spurs do well ENIC do well. But occasionally there is a conflict between the goals, for example the Amazon documentary was allegedly a dictat from above against the manager''s wishes. Where the goals conflict the money will trump the football side.
 
Hootnow said:
I think it is a slightly misleading graph because it simply compares relative to the financial behemoth that is Man Utd.

If we look at absolute differences in the revenue from 2004 to 2010 to 2018 (I tried finding the deloitte records for the 2001/2002 season but couldn't find them unfortunately, beyond the top 10 in Europe, which we weren't in).

Arsenal 67—103—10
Liverpool 77—65—75
Chelsea 115—90—70
Man Utd 140—166—210

I haven't included Emirates Marketing Project cos they're dirty twunts and it would be pointless.

But we have essentially closed the gap completely to Arsenal, slowly and gradually decreased it to Chelsea, stayed pretty much consistent with Liverpool and fallen even further behind Man Utd. Interestingly, considering I've seen Spurs fans bemoan the TV deals and waiting fro them to crash...we're the most reliant on broadcasting deals for our revenues currently, though I hope we get some much improved matchday numbers and also commercial, which is where we lag behind.

I feel like I'm being forced to take a position that I don't really like, where it appears I'm just attacking Levy and ENIC. I really do think they've done a great job overall and I'm very thankful for them.

But being grateful to them in the way that some are is, for me, akin to being grateful to your mortgage lender for your house. Yes they've lent you £300k to buy the house and its great. You have a lovely house now! But...they're not doing you a favour. That money is all you and you'll be paying back £400k in the end. So I appreciate them for a job well done. But I'm not ecstatic for their lending, they've not given me the house or any money to actually spend.
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Our two analyses are saying exactly the same thing mate, just presented in slightly different ways!

And I don’t think the mortgage lender analogy works... they haven’t lent the club money, they’ve increased its revenue through shrewd management. Which will in turn lead to even more success on the pitch. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to love them for their contribution to our on the pitch success through good performance in their roles, in the same way that you can love managers or players for the same thing - none of which requires any of them spending their own money to benefit the club.
 
elltrev said:
Our two analyses are saying exactly the same thing mate, just presented in slightly different ways!

And I don’t think the mortgage lender analogy works... they haven’t lent the club money, they’ve increased its revenue through shrewd management. Which will in turn lead to even more success on the pitch. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to love them for their contribution to our on the pitch success through good performance in their roles, in the same way that you can love managers or players for the same thing - none of which requires any of them spending their own money to benefit the club.
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but they have put the club in debt which in turn has actually raised the clubs value too in their opinion (as i said earlier their valuation of the club may differ from reality, and it comes to what someone would pay)

but what the havent dine is what Hootniw is describing which is basically what the glaze have done at United... remortgage the club to take money out
 
I have no doubt that Levy will do what he thibks is best for the clubs well-being.
That's isn't always going to be what's best for the team, short term at least.

We as individuals don't have to like it, but I would say that we should remember that Levy has more of the picture than we do.

I don't think I've ever seen a chairman/owner get the balance of being a fan and a businessman more right than Levy.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
but they have put the club in debt which in turn has actually raised the clubs value too in their opinion (as i said earlier their valuation of the club may differ from reality, and it comes to what someone would pay)

but what the havent dine is what Hootniw is describing which is basically what the glaze have done at United... remortgage the club to take money out
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You have completely misunderstood what I'm saying. I am not saying that they have mortgaged the club to take money out at all, nor that they are taking money out of the club in any way.

I also don't begrudge them doing what they've done at all, they've overall done a great job, seen a great investment opportunity and *if* their end game is to buy low, sell high, they will have done an incredible job.

I am trying, with a slightly clunky metaphor, to equate them with a day to day real estate example. I do not mean that ENIC have lent us money. I mean that, just as with a mortgage where you ultimately pay off all the money yourself and the lender is simply providing a service, ENIC have not done us a favour by building the stadium. The money is all Spurs the club, not a gift from ENIC.

Mr Spurs have essentially taken out a mortgage to build a stadium. Mr ENIC are the mortgage brokers (perhaps a better comparison than the lender themselves) who've found a great deal and overall done a great job. But...that's what they've done, a great job, not a favour.

And I find it slightly strange when some fans seem to want everyone to treat the stadium as if they've done us a favour with it. They've done their job very well (while being paid very well) and now we will pay the stadium off, with the money that we as a club generate.
 
Robspur12 said:
ENIC are an investment vehicle right? Everything they have done is to maximize their investment right? Nothing wrong with that imo. But they are making decisions that protect their investment short and long-term. That was their starting point and is their endgame too. They will sell the club when the time is right i.e. when they have maximised their investment return. They are not running the club for altruistic reasons. The likes of Abramovich sheikh khaldoon, Jack Walker have invested millions of their own funds into their clubs rightly or wrongly. I am not expecting Joe Lewis to do the same any time soon

Now, it is likely their financial acumen will secure the club's future which is great. However, at times they have made decisions that are not necessarily in the best interests of our competitiveness on the football pitch. You can see why purist football fans might question them. I can understand the respect we have built up for them, rightly so, but for me there is never the same emotional attachment as there is with the team or manager. I find fans creaming themselves over revenue slightly strange. Perhaps it's my age.
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A few comments

- Counter to the best interests on the football pitch "today", again this is a risk/reward business decision and the people with all the data made decisions (that I completely get frustrate fans) that at the time, it wasn't the right call. (same point I think @glasgowspur made)
- @Hootnow again I feel you are being a touch unfair here, yes they financed the expenses with the club's income, kind of like you saying you have a mortgage on your home (or a rental property), you didn't really pay for it?
- No one is creaming over the revenue, what a few people are trying to show is the progress (which the lack of frustrates fans) on the revenue side which should be a pre-cursor to ability to invest on pitch.

I don't see them selling anytime soon, this isn't a stock investment, this is a financially sound business that is growing year over year, the pool of buyers (as another poster had pointed out) is small and there is no pressure to sell (ENIC, Joe & Levy seemingly are ok)

Again, you probably have 4 general types of owners in the PL

- Money doping -> money being laundered due to it coming from bricky places and/or illegitimate/shady business, or State sponsored PR to put a positive light on truly horrible governments
- Oportunism -> typically us companies investing in and skimming off the profits (piggy bank model that can be seen in financials, see United)
- Incompetance -> hard to describe because it follows no pattern of logic (see barcodes as example)
- Traditional club owners -> typically lack true either football or business capacity to push club forward and only the PL money train has stopped some of them from rolling over.

Levy/ENIC/Joe Lewis was something different, they saw a brick model (see above) and the money train coming, thought by bringing a modern approach (multiple club ownership, DoF, infrastructure investments, local responsability) they could make a sound business investment that would align with the success of the football. Almost everything they have tried (and some of it has failed) is being or plans to be copied by others years later ..

Short answer

- You don't have to like them, and I have no particular fondness for ENIC (I do admire Levy from a business perspective), but I generally carry no love for managers either, but you should be fair

To succeed on the pitch long term, you need to be successful financially (and that is a whole other argument), what Levy/ENIC have proved without a doubt is they are brilliant at the later, time (2-3 years) will show if they can pull off the former at the highest level.

-
 
Hootnow said:
You have completely misunderstood what I'm saying. I am not saying that they have mortgaged the club to take money out at all, nor that they are taking money out of the club in any way.

I also don't begrudge them doing what they've done at all, they've overall done a great job, seen a great investment opportunity and *if* their end game is to buy low, sell high, they will have done an incredible job.

I am trying, with a slightly clunky metaphor, to equate them with a day to day real estate example. I do not mean that ENIC have lent us money. I mean that, just as with a mortgage where you ultimately pay off all the money yourself and the lender is simply providing a service, ENIC have not done us a favour by building the stadium. The money is all Spurs the club, not a gift from ENIC.

Mr Spurs have essentially taken out a mortgage to build a stadium. Mr ENIC are the mortgage brokers (perhaps a better comparison than the lender themselves) who've found a great deal and overall done a great job. But...that's what they've done, a great job, not a favour.

And I find it slightly strange when some fans seem to want everyone to treat the stadium as if they've done us a favour with it. They've done their job very well (while being paid very well) and now we will pay the stadium off, with the money that we as a club generate.
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I think the fairer comparison is ENIC bought a rental property, they made a downpayment (purchase price) and leveraged the equity to do a mortgage plus renovation. That is their money, because it is their risk, and you wouldn't tell me that if it was your home, Mr House was paying for it even if you were letting a room.

If you want to see what a leveraged buyout is without risk to the buyer, take a look at United ..
 
elltrev said:
Our two analyses are saying exactly the same thing mate, just presented in slightly different ways!

And I don’t think the mortgage lender analogy works... they haven’t lent the club money, they’ve increased its revenue through shrewd management. Which will in turn lead to even more success on the pitch. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to love them for their contribution to our on the pitch success through good performance in their roles, in the same way that you can love managers or players for the same thing - none of which requires any of them spending their own money to benefit the club.
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I'm not totally sure they're saying the right thing to be honest, or at least we're looking at it in different ways!

As we've replaced Arsenal essentially as regular top 4 contenders, we've closed the gap completely. We've closed the gap with Chelsea slightly. But we're standing still vs Liverpool and fallen further behind Man Utd. Of course the argument could be that without his leadership, we may have fallen further behind and his big achievement has been to make sure we didn't fall back into the Leicester/Everton/West ham pack, which I would empathise and agree with.

Apologies, as above, I did not mean they have literally lent the club money, I was just trying to portray my feeling that they have essentially provided a service to the club, as opposed to a favour, which seems to be how some fans want other fans to see it.

I'm afraid while I have huge respect for Levy and generally defend him to the hilt against accusations from other fans, I'm not sure I can see him in the way that you, Raziel, Parklane or others see him.

To me, he (and Lewis) are people who have done a service for the club, for a fee and ultimately with their own interests at heart. 99% of the time, I personally believe these interests overlap with our own. I think they have done a great job. We are much better now than when they took over. Levy probably is a fan and probably does take personal enjoyment from seeing us doing better.

But ultimately to me, I am not the kind of fan who gets ecstatic at the latest set of accounts. I am not going to sit here and bow before Levy for building a stadium with the club's own money. I am not going to get myself into a tizz because we apparently have amazing training facilities. I will hugely respect and appreciate them for what they've contributed to the club which, for better or worse, I love. I will criticise them when I feel it is appropriate to do so, knowing that I am one of thousands of faceless fans who they individually couldn't care less about.

So I see them with respect. Happiness for what they've achieved generally for the club. But no great warmth necessarily.

That's just me though.
 
Raziel said:
I think the fairer comparison is ENIC bought a rental property, they made a downpayment (purchase price) and leveraged the equity to do a mortgage plus renovation. That is their money, because it is their risk, and you wouldn't tell me that if it was your home, Mr House was paying for it even if you were letting a room.

If you want to see what a leveraged buyout is without risk to the buyer, take a look at United ..
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If you or I buy a rental property and fail to keep up with the repayments, the bank will take the property. Your deposit, your payments to that point will have been worthless. Your property will be gone.

A few years ago, when Liverpool were on the verge of administration, with very large debts, NESV still bought the club for £300 million.

If we fail to keep up repayments on the stadium for whatever reason, let's be completely honest here. It isn't going to be Levy and Lewis who suffer or lose money. It will be Spurs the club.
 
galeforce said:
that they haven't had to pump money in it's what brilliant about it, we are not relying on anyone's charity, if ENIC get bored they can sell it for whatever they deem fair and walk away with more than their purchase price, but the club will be in excellent health and there is no reason why anything would need to change

to steal the old expression, city and chelsea are being handed fish, ENIC showed us how to make a net

quick edit to respond to @Hootnow

we don't expect them to do us a favour, it's merely that our interests are aligned, the relationship is symbiotic
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And that's totally fine. I've articulated much more in the posts above.

But please then don't expect everyone else to worship them or to have a uniform view of them.

I will see them with a cool head, as I'm sure they themselves see the club. For me, there is not particularly much emotion for me towards Levy or Lewis, apart from appreciation at a job well done. Admittedly, this is on a background of generally much reduced emotion towards football in general though.
 
Hootnow said:
If you or I buy a rental property and fail to keep up with the repayments, the bank will take the property. Your deposit, your payments to that point will have been worthless. Your property will be gone.

A few years ago, when Liverpool were on the verge of administration, with very large debts, NESV still bought the club for £300 million.

If we fail to keep up repayments on the stadium for whatever reason, let's be completely honest here. It isn't going to be Levy and Lewis who suffer or lose money. It will be Spurs the club.
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Joe Lewis will ensure that we never fail to keep up repayments.
 
Raziel said:
Mate, no offense but point by point

- they are basically treating the club as a giant piggy bank = unsubstantiated, show me in the accounts where ENIC is taking money out of the club (United and Scum do btw)
- one they will eventually break open and walk away with the contents of in their back pockets = unsubstantiated again, the 19 year quick flip project narrative is still going I see
- they will carry on spending the minimum they can get away with on playing staff without jeopardising their main objective = what is their main objective? is it the "quick flip" or is it "piggy bank" they haven't used in 19 years?
- I reckon the clock is now ticking on a sale, though. = 19 years later the clock is ticking? do you really believe this stuff?

Let play an alternative version for you

- Levy and ENIC do see the club as an investment (they actually planned to own multiple clubs in Europe initially), but they neither intend to do a quick flip or drain the club of resources
- What you and the media play as Levy/ENIC not wanting to spend is dishonest, first it completely ignores the spend in training facilities, train station, stadium and Tottenham area in general. As many others have pointed out, if they wanted to make a profit they could have built the stadium at half or a third of the cost. Second the principle is keeping our wages/players costs in line with "safe" spend and not banking on CL money to keep the club out of fiscal trouble. You can choose to disagree with that approach but that is simply a difference of opinion on acceptable risk, not them being cheap or milking the club.

Let me play out what Levy is trying to

- American NFL is the one sport that dwarfs PL in terms of money, both in terms of revenue and sponsorship. If he can combine both (perhaps initially where we co-use WHL) or even own both (buy a franchise), the naming rights, sponsorship, commercial opportunities would put us above United and Madrid and then we could pay anyone, anything we want.

It is an amazing strategy and one unique in the world of sports (that I know of) and done without shady money or deals, something Spurs fans should be proud of if/when it comes to fruition.

Instead we support this flimflam narrative against our own club with absolutely nothing to back it up other than well 5 clubs spend more money than us ...
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I think Levy has done brilliantly with the investment into structure and facilities. His partnership with the NFL is visionary, a stroke of genius for sure. But we are a well-run business, something I am personally proud of. We have always looked to stay within certain means. Joe Lewis is no sugar daddy, and I personally was very proud of that. He has run it like a tight, hard business.

Where I think Levy can always be criticized is with regard to players, incoming and outgoings. There is no doubt whatsoever that Levy has consistently applied the driest sense of business when dealing in the transfer market, and this had lead to protracted deals which end up resulting in either near-misses or deadline day purchases; not conducive to preparation, but Daniel has always loved a deal and played as hard as possible to get one. Again, it is a strategy I can somewhat understand.

What makes me believe a sale is in the offing is that DL will have prepared for all sorts of scenarios in eluding a non-CL season, in the new stadium. In my opinion, he clearly got the message from above to make this move IF he could get Mourinho, a huge name in football, perhaps because there is an interested party and knowing that with the amazon doc and Mourinho's name, our stock and attention would stratosphere short-term, thus preserving our interests as a viable commodity. As you rightly say the NFL tie-in is a blinder; now with Mourinho in charge, we are top sports news every day. Our presence is huge. Therefore I think there is very real legitimacy to the selling concept personally.
 
Hootnow said:
I think this comes down to a difference in expectation and what people may consider to be admirable or normal and where I find some fans comments slightly strange.

Let us be totally clear here and reiterate that 'their build' of the stadium, the train station, the training facilities has, as far as I'm aware (and please correct me if I'm wrong), come completely from club money. I'm not criticising this or saying that I'd wish they'd put in (though personally I wish they had). But they haven't built these things from their own money or through the kindness of their hearts. We're currently sitting on over £600 million worth of debt, having already spent (if I remember correctly), over £400 million as a club on infrastructure projects.

I appreciate the excellent job they've done to oversee these projects. I love the stadium. But, as Robspur said, I find it incredibly strange that we have fans creaming themselves over accounts and over stuff like infrastructure, as if ENIC have funded it themselves. They have not. We'll be paying it off for years to come still.

If/when they do decide to sell, they will be making a humungous profit, regardless of whether they'd spent £1 billion on the stadium or not spent on the stadium at all. They bought the club for what...£40 million? I can't recall them putting their money in over the time they've had us. So they will be making a very very tidy profit whenever they do sell up.

Why this is so offensive to say for some I'm not really sure.
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Excellent post.
I heard a figure floated...2 billion!!!!!
 
@Hootnow

Your comparisons aren't as even handed as you think they are mate, you shouldn't really include Chelsea for the same reasons you have ignored City and you have to appreciate that money makes money in the case of Liverpool/United and even Arsenal - big clubs who were succesful at the time of the Sky TV era and then the CL era - big clubs with ever growing world wide fanbases and global reach commercially - matching Liverpool and Chelsea's growth with that in mind, as you describe it, is an achievement closing the gap on Arsenal is huge... one important factor which has been left out too is how we have fared with clubs that are traditionally our peers - your Saudi Sportswashing Machine Everton Villa and dare i say Leeds', clubs that at one point or another have been trying to make the jump from best of the rest to part of the top group etc - we are the only club to have made that leap on the pitch and you really should be looking at our growth compared to theirs also.

It's the latter which really shows the job that has been done here because there is really no reason at all that we have a right to succeed where those clubs have failed, we could easily be sat where Saudi Sportswashing Machine or Villa are had we had different owners these past 20 years and to be where we are whilst building the stadium and the infrastructure improvements undertaken as well shows the real difference between our ownership and all others in their ability at managing both on and off the field.
 
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