• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Daniel Levy - Chairman

I can’t believe comments from the trust are a bbc sports news article!

I think there are couple of moving parts that have become entwined with the failed attempt to secure ESL membership. Whilst I disagree with the principle of a closed shop competition, it is not lost on me that the bleatings are being made by the various organisations who have contributed to creating a league and European competitions that create a greater disparity between the top and bottom of the pyramid season by season. It doesn’t change my mind but it makes me feel more likely to challenge their hypocrisy.

There is understandable frustration as a percentage of us as fans, or even customers would probably swap the shiny new stadium for WHL, to spend a couple of 100m on players and wages in the hope it would have pushed us over the line in the finals we have lost or the leagues we finished 3rd or above in.

The decision to partake in the ESL genuinely seems to be one we couldn’t have said no to, as a business or fan. Forgetting Goons, the other 4 teams have far larger proven revenue schemes, two of which aren’t legitimately produced by the club itself. Now it’s all fallen through it would be great to be able lord our chairman as a self styled principled man of the people but if chairmen with limitless personal funds who’s clubs qualify for CL more often than not thought it was a good idea to sign up, I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect our chairman to risk the future of the club by taking a moral stand. I wish they’d served up the idea to the top 10 clubs in the prem to prove the take up was there outside the 6 and based the qualification on an historical Uefa co efficient, which is basically now serving the purpose of ring fencing qualification based on clubs standing as at today, which is then bolstered season on season by the subsequent ‘qualifications’.
I’m in the camp that due to Levy there has been an opportunity cost due to us not investing in players when we were strong, ditto the infrastructure being funded out of what would have been transfer funds and player trading approached purely on an asset basis rather than considering the intangibles such as the manager’s specific requirements, squad harmony or the benefits of fresh competition, but the ESL decision was made with the best intentions for the survival of the club.

As an aside, the twenty is plenty movement was fan driven and was acceded to by the relevant powers that be - there may have been a genuine intent to make football affordable for all but all it has done is create a closed shop based on an historical position creating greater barriers to entry. There are some decisions that are not binary and there are knock on factors to consider from the offset.
 
Last edited:
Finney Is Back said:
I must’ve imaged Leicester actually doing what football clubs are supposed to try to do and winning the league
Click to expand...

You're forgetting their flouting of FFP rules when they were promoted to the PL, let alone the cashflow their owners pumped in. Essentially you could argue that for their scale, they also 'bought' it to an extent. I said it at the time.
 
Finney Is Back said:
I think their owners are primarily interested in them trying to do so instead of trying to maximise their own net worth.
Click to expand...

I think Levy has fudged up at critical moments player-investment wise. You know that. However, without Covid, this stadium would've been a cash-cow to deliver precisely what we need on the pitch. Again, his biggest mistake was the sacking before this one. I agree, ENIC are concerned with business, and have always run us very tightly. Had we kept MP and not been in Covid, we'd be laughing IMO. Alas, we are where we are...at least today we have a sense of progress again and not regression...
 
scaramanga said:
I think you massively overestimate fan power.

If City and Chelsea hadn't dropped out, we'd still be going ahead. Don't kid yourself that Levy would have ruined our club over a pang of conscience or the will of customers that know nothing of running such a business.
Click to expand...

Do you think that was City and Chelsea's plan all along.
 
DubSpur said:
A once in a lifetime fluke. Do you really think they are in a better position to kick on long term?
Click to expand...
Recent title win and likely CL finish this season. There's no reason for them not to do better than us in the short to medium term. It's a bit of a blinkered view not to be able to see that.
 
thfcsteff said:
You're forgetting their flouting of FFP rules when they were promoted to the PL, let alone the cashflow their owners pumped in. Essentially you could argue that for their scale, they also 'bought' it to an extent. I said it at the time.
Click to expand...

Wolves and Brighton as well.

I have been genuinely shocked at the reaction of some Brighton fans round my way. The main blind greed on show has been on them to be honest.

Had I been in charge of the Premier league I would have told the euro 6 they can leave but the can't play in the league anymore.

Now reading Moyes saying that Scottish clubs should be allowed in the English league system. No bias or greed there is the?? The whole thing stinks.
 
Finney Is Back said:
Kroenke, the Glaziers, the dildo brothers. Who else rank as worse owners than ENIC in the PL?
Click to expand...
Their good examples
But it’s all proportionate
An owner putting in £50m at say a wolves or a palace is money to keep them in the league
It’s exactly what the wieners at Brighton have done for example
And eventually it may lay off with a Return if the clubs value appreciates due to being in this league
I do agree by the way that Ashley isn’t a bad owner. Their fans are the biggest problem up there
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Their good examples
But it’s all proportionate
An owner putting in £50m at say a wolves or a palace is money to keep them in the league
It’s exactly what the wieners at Brighton have done for example
And eventually it may lay off with a Return if the clubs value appreciates due to being in this league
I do agree by the way that Ashley isn’t a bad owner. Their fans are the biggest problem up there
Click to expand...

Ashley is actually quite a decent owner. Always wondered why he did not make more of the lower leagues, with his business sense he could have turned them into a Dortmund style team.

Their fans would have still moaned but they would have got higher up the league.
 
scaramanga said:
I think you massively overestimate fan power.

If City and Chelsea hadn't dropped out, we'd still be going ahead. Don't kid yourself that Levy would have ruined our club over a pang of conscience or the will of customers that know nothing of running such a business.
Click to expand...

I don’t agree. You mentioned city and Chelsea, why do you think they backed out? In my opinion, the backlash in the football community as a whole but more importantly their own fanbases was the catalyst for them pulling. It was pretty obvious that once one club pulled out the others would follow. It certainly wasn’t motivated by finances IMO. We also reversed our decision regarding the furlough scheme because of the optics and fan disapproval. No way Levy doesn’t continue with the ESL or furlough of THFC staff if there wasn’t a backlash.

I don’t have any experience running a huge company but Levy doesn’t have experience playing professional football to my knowledge. My biggest criticism of him is that he needs to surround himself with more people who actually know the game inside out so he can get on with the day to day business operations and leave the football side of things to the experts.
 
Danishfurniturelover said:
Ashley is actually quite a decent owner. Always wondered why he did not make more of the lower leagues, with his business sense he could have turned them into a Dortmund style team.

Their fans would have still moaned but they would have got higher up the league.
Click to expand...
Their fans are utter bell ends
Over expectation based on 3 good seasons in 60 years
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Their fans are utter bell ends
Over expectation based on 3 good seasons in 60 years
Click to expand...

Mate of mine worked in Saudi Sportswashing Machine for 4 years and said the whole city is fixated with the club and it was the sole topic of conversation anywhere he went, but it must be nice to live in a city where you're not surrounded by tossers wearing United, Liverpool and Woolwich shirts.
 
spurs' magna carter said:
The Trust can be hard to take seriously sometimes, they remind me of Hans Blix in Team America. However, whilst I see their words and request falling deaf on Levy & Co.'s ears, I do agree with them. It is a a disgrace what they have done, wreckless arrogance.

To put it simply, the approach they took, along with the other protagonists, was like that of the Tory Government for the Poll Tax. They rolled their eyes when the screams of boogeyman were made in the build up to implementation thinking that it was another simpleton response to 'much needed change' which had happened many times before. Only to realise at the last minute that they had a made terrible mistake and got the shock of their lives when they saw the public response. No relegation? Which fanbase, even those of the participant clubs would be happy with that? Maybe some but then to have the cheek to effectively call loyal supporters dinosaurs. And that's before you get to the response of UEFA, Premier League regardless how hypocritical they (really) are. Let alone a family of five scraping by being happy with paying more rates than a wealthy retired couple.

This scene from Moneyball, ironically featuring Liverpool's own John Henry (albeit somewhat fictionally) sums up everything that has happened this week. What he says about money in how it helps you disregard what people want or the game (of baseball in this case) thinks is evidently how the owners aplroached Derp But also what he says about those holding the reigns. It'sms astonishing that Levy and other owners thought that UEFA, the governing body of European football, would not be able to do enough to keep their hands on them without any consequences for them. UEFA went bat sh!t crazy, and they won.


And the Trust raise a good point here, this could be 1994 (booted out of the Cup before paying then HUGE sums to get back in it) all over again which during these times really could be disastrous.
Click to expand...

Finney Is Back said:
Had this come off then ENICs paper profit on their Spurs investment would’ve risen from about £1.5 billion to £2 billion plus. It’s effectively a no lose gamble for them with the clubs money.
Click to expand...
The humiliation of having your post liked by @DubaiSpur. Now you know you've entered the nuthouse.
 
Jurgen the German said:
I don’t agree. You mentioned city and Chelsea, why do you think they backed out? In my opinion, the backlash in the football community as a whole but more importantly their own fanbases was the catalyst for them pulling. It was pretty obvious that once one club pulled out the others would follow. It certainly wasn’t motivated by finances IMO. We also reversed our decision regarding the furlough scheme because of the optics and fan disapproval. No way Levy doesn’t continue with the ESL or furlough of THFC staff if there wasn’t a backlash.
Click to expand...
Those clubs would not have pulled out if they weren't sitting on bottomless pits of money.

Neither of those clubs need to make profits - one is a money/reputation washing machine, the other is just part of a dingdong waving contest. Neither of those goals work particularly well with masses of overfed, undereducated gammons shouting outside the ground.

Real clubs, however, require the pursuit of on and off-field success. This is entirely unaffected by such trivial nonsense.

Jurgen the German said:
I don’t have any experience running a huge company but Levy doesn’t have experience playing professional football to my knowledge. My biggest criticism of him is that he needs to surround himself with more people who actually know the game inside out so he can get on with the day to day business operations and leave the football side of things to the experts.
Click to expand...
Isn't it fortunate then, that we're not relying on Levy playing professional football (something I'm in no doubt he'd be universally terrible at).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back