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Tottenham have done something which sums Daniel Levy up as £218m outlay confirmed

Adam Williams

Fri 24 January 2025 16:30, UK

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is as forensic as they come and will be well aware of the causal link between investment in the playing squad and success in the Premier League.

Yes, disruptors like Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Brighton and Nottingham Forest – all of whose budgets are substantially smaller than Spurs’ primarily because of PSR – have proven it is possible to do more with less.

But even with Tottenham and Man United gasping for air in the bottom half of the Premier League, reports of the demise of the so-called ‘Big Six’ have been greatly exaggerated.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
12	Crystal PalaceCrystal Palace	22	6	9	7	25	28	-3	27
13	Man UtdManchester United	22	7	5	10	27	32	-5	26
14	West HamWest Ham	22	7	5	10	27	43	-16	26
15	TottenhamTottenham	22	7	3	12	45	35	10	24
16	EvertonEverton	21	4	8	9	18	28	-10	20
17	WolvesWolves	22	4	4	14	32	51	-19	16

While hardly rags-to-riches stories, Villa and Newcastle’s qualification for the Champions League on relatively modest budgets in the last two seasons are the exceptions, not the rule.

The revenue gap between the haves – Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and the two Manchester clubs – and the have-nots mean the Big Six are insulated from failure in the long-term.

There may be single campaigns or even periods of several seasons when the footballing strategy goes pear-shaped enough to negate the protectionary impact of increased investment in the squad.

But zooming out on the graph, football’s financial structures and the commercial pull of the Big Six means they are more or less guaranteed to remain at the top of the hierarchy.

There are leagues within leagues, however, and Spurs fans watching Ange Postecoglou’s side flounder this season will rightly point out that their club are currently the ugly duckling of the Big Six.

Even accounting for their biblical list of injuries, the North Londoners are nowhere near where they should be – but why?

Tottenham’s injuries

It’s easy to fall back on easy platitudes when discussing Tottenham’s cultural issues, but it does look like the environment within the club is a barrier to success.

Shoddy recruitment, a lightweight sporting structure, and Daniel Levy’s micromanagement are also regularly cited as root causes for the club’s 17-year trophy drought.

With Spurs currently seeking fresh investment, the hope among supporters is that a new minority owner – former Newcastle supremo Amanda Staveley, perhaps – could inject some gumption.

What exactly will happen to the proceeds generated by a minority equity sale isn’t clear.

Levy says the extra capital will go towards investment in the team as well as infrastructure projects, although he and ENIC could just as easily pocket the money themselves if it is a private share transfer.

Incidentally, Spurs have been granted planning permission to build a hotel on the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium site, which will put a strain on resources…

In any case, if the club want to compete at the top end of the Premier League again and, significantly, return to lucrative Champions League football, greater football spending is needed.

But based on the latest information direct from Tottenham HQ, fans may be sceptical that increased investment will materialise.

• READ MORE: Daniel Levy and ENIC have confirmed ‘long-term investment’ at Tottenham as £35m paperwork filed

Tottenham slash wage bill

When challenged on Spurs’ relatively modest investment compared to their peer group, the hierarchy have pointed out that spending has always increased with revenue.

And that is true, but the margin between the two metrics is widening. In layman’s terms, spending is increasing but not as fast as turnover is rising.

And the latest financial data from the Football Money League, which has access to official data before club accounts are publicly available, shows this trend is accelerating.

In 2022-23, Spurs spent £251m on wages. In 2023-24? The figure was £218m.

That drop-off was attributable primarily to the absence of Champions League football, which delivers bonuses that are encompassed in the wage bill figure.

However, as a percentage of revenue, Spurs’ spending on wages decreased from 46 to 42 per cent, which – when all clubs have filed their accounts – will be comfortably the smallest in the Premier League.

Meanwhile, other clubs who dropped out of the Champions League in 2023-24 – Liverpool, for example, actually increased spending on wages.

• READ MORE: £8.5bn Tottenham part-takeover twist as Daniel Levy ally Florentino Perez makes official announcement

How much does Daniel Levy earn as Spurs chairman?

When Cristian Romero took a not-so-subtle swipe at Spurs’ management earlier this season, he was far from the first to criticise Levy and his peers’ methods.

“Manchester City competes every year, you see how Liverpool strengthens its squad, Chelsea strengthens their squad, doesn’t do well, strengthens again, and now they’re seeing results – those are the things to imitate,” the World Cup winner said.

“You have to realise that something is going wrong, hopefully, they [the board] realise it.”

“The last few years, it’s always the same – first the players, then the coaching staff changes, and it’s always the same people responsible.

“Hopefully they realise who the true responsible ones are and we move forward because it’s a beautiful club that, with the structure it has, could easily be competing for the title every year.”

Since 2001, when Joe Lewis and ENIC bought Tottenham, Levy has trousered around £51m from his salary and performance-related bonuses.

That is – by some margin – the most any Premier League club executive has earned over that period.

From ENIC’s perspective, he warrants that salary. After all, the club’s enterprise value has increased by a staggering 6,000 per cent in his time as chairman.

As the owner of around 30 per cent of the club’s equity, Levy will also cash in both when the minority investment is complete and, in the longer term, ENIC sell Spurs entirely.

Given that the club have been appraised by Levy at around £3.75bn, it will be an extraordinary payday for the owners who paid have only spent around £200m of their own money to fund it.

As a former private equity merchant, Levy understands the value of capital growth. And he is in for the motherload when the ENIC era ends.