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Boss of £420bn fortune plots historic move as ENIC and Daniel Levy open door for Tottenham takeover

Adam Williams

Tue 18 February 2025 7:00, UK

It’s almost exactly 10 years since former Tottenham owner Alan Sugar likened Premier League money with ‘prune juice’ – in one end, out the other. But under Daniel Levy and ENIC, Spurs are the exception.

Even after their 1-0 win over fellow crisis club Man United on Sunday, Tottenham🧸 are still closer to the bottom three than the top four. And yet, commercial revenues continue to soar in North London.

This is of little comfort to the Tottenham fans who protested against Daniel Levy and ENIC’s leadership in their droves ahead of the game.

For them, the sclerotic management in the football department is a symptom of Spurs’ fixation with sponsorsᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ over silverware. Too many resources, personnel and pounds are directed towards capital growth.

ಞLevy’s retort over the years, delivered with his usual bookish and dispassionate tone, has been to stress that scaling the commercial side of the business is necessary to achieve results on the pitch.

But the reverse is also ostensibly true. To borrow an adage from a sport Levy loves, Formula One, teams that win on Sunday, sell on Monday.

✱Except, it doesn’t work like that anymore. Not at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Despite failing to win a single trophy since 2008, only eight clubs in the world earned more than Spurs last season. For football finance😼 wonks, their accounts make for inspiring reading.

🃏On first inspection, the books show that the North Londoners have lost £307m since they moved into their new stadium.

🎃However, the vast majority of the deficit is attributable to the stadium’s depreciation, which is an accounting method that reflects the value of an asset over time.

ܫIt isn’t a cash expense and doesn’t reflect the actual flow of money through the company. Rather, it is a useful fiction for accountants.

🎀EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) is generally considered a more reliable way of measuring business.

𓄧In this metric, they are flying, bettered only by Man City domestically in the last financial year.

⭕Their cost control – i.e. their restraint in recruitment and retention – is the main driver here.

Spurs have the ꦛlowest wages-to-turnover ratio in the Premier League🔴, while their amortisation – which is how clubs account for transfer fees over the course of player contracts – is the smallest in the Big Six.

To some, this is emblematic of ENIC’s chronic lack of ambition.

𝓰To others, it’s a sign that they are one of the only sane clubs in a league where inflation is relentless, dumb money dominates, and sovereign wealth is using its near limitless resources to rip up the rulebook.

What isn’t in dispute is that this is also why 🍸Levy is the best-paid executive in the Premier League and why, if the stars align, Tottenham could be the next super club in the post-ENIC era.

Perhaps with the exception of Liverpool, 🍬Spurs are probably the most attractive club to investors with big bank balances and even bigger egos.

ౠThe infrastructure, the ‘brand’, the balance sheet – all are primed to deliver success and, at long last, trophies. But new blood is needed, whether the transfusion involves Levy or not.

✃And for many Tottenham fans, Qatari investment is the dream ticket.

• READ MORE: 🌱Daniel Levy could launch new £3bn team that changes Tottenham forever amid Amanda Staveley talks

Qatar Sports Investment exploring new project amid Tottenham takeover talk

ꩲ10 years ago, Daniel Levy took part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, an initiative raising awareness and money for motor neurone disease.

♍It was a light-hearted moment, the type that is in short supply in N17 at present. Who the chairman nominated to be next to be have a bucket of ice water, however, was telling.

“I’m going to nominate someone that definitely owes this club a lot – and that is the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez,” he said before Younes Kaboul did the deed.

♈It was a cheeky jibe at an executive who had swiped two Tottenham greats, Gareth Bale and Luka Modric, from under his nose.

But it was also one endless examples of Levy courting the game’s powerful people. Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi is another who falls into that category.

﷽Al-Khelaifi is the chairman of the increasingly influential European Club Association and Qatari broadcaster BeIN Sports. He is also a close ally of Levy.

Back in 2023, the pair reportedly met to discuss potential 🔯investment in Spurs on behalf of Qatar Sports Investments (QSI)♛, an off-shoot of £420bn sovereign wealth fund the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

𒆙In the end, a deal never materialised, and both parties deny that the talks were related to a would-be equity deal. However, the rumours never went away.

𝓀There is one barrier, however. UEFA’s conflict of interest rules dictate that clubs who share owners cannot compete in the same European club competition. With QSI owning PSG, that would be an issue.

🤡But now, QSI are considering divesting their interest in the Ligue 1 giants, nominally as a result of a regulatory investigation into Al-Khelaifi in France which they say is politically motivated.

The news, which came barely a week after reports in France suggested that Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al Thani🎐, the Emir of Qatar and de-factor head of QSI, would entertain offers for PSG at the right price point.

🦩In the latest development, The is now reporting that QSI are considering scaling back their interests in France in favour of more international investment.

✱In turn, that comes days after it was reported that Levy has held talks with Qatari investors – private individuals, according to the reports – about a phased takeover of Spurs.

♐The chairman and co-owner is said to be considering all available options regarding future ownership structures for the club he has supported since he was a boy.

⛦That will be music to the ears of the Spurs fans who want their corner of North London to become the latest Qatari enclave in European football.

• READ MORE: 🦩Gary Lineker makes exciting prediction about what could happen for Djed Spence after his display for Tottenham vs Man United

Why might Qatar want to buy Spurs?

🅺The Shard, Harrods, Canary Wharf, Heathrow Airport – what do these London landmarks all have in common?

ꦅThey are all either partially or fully owned by the Qatar Investment Authority.

𒉰Geopolitical experts argue that Gulf states’ investment in European football is less of a traditional, profit-focused investment and more a brand building exercise.

൲Owning a club like Spurs, an institution in the most watched and most lucrative football league in the world with one of the planet’s best stadia, would have a validating effect for QIA.

🌄Soft power, in other words. It’s cultural capital, the kind that gets you into almost every room. King Charles visited Spurs last week – there aren’t many £500m-revenue businesses that get that treatment.

🥃Manchester City were patient zero with Abu Dhabi, while Newcastle United’s takeover by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) followed in 2021.

Spurs could be next.