The Death of Tottenham Hotspur

When the final whistle descended at the Emirates last Wednesday, signaling the end of yet another dismal, ineffectual North London Derby performance, there was no rage, no anger, no bitterness. Just a collective shrug of indifference from a fanbase who knew exactly what was coming, and was finding it increasingly hard to care. The sense of disillusionment was palpable. 

In many ways, this is perhaps the most telling legacy of Daniel Levy and ENIC’s ownership of Tottenham Hotspur. Generational fans replaced by tourists, hardcore supporters supplanted by day-trippers, and tribalism succumbing to apathy. 

Expectation has been curtailed. Hope has been extinguished. This is a fanbase, and a club, that no longer dares to dream, let alone do.  It was the 6th defeat in the past 8 North London Derbies. The 3^rd consecutive defeat — for the first time in Premier League history. The 5^th time Arsenal have done the double over Spurs in a single season; the 2^nd in Mikel Arteta’s tenure. Tottenham’s miserable run of 1 away win in the past 31 games, stretched to 32. And yet the man overseeing all of this failure just gets richer and richer, his pockets deeper and deeper. 

The reality is that Arsenal are no longer our rivals. They operate in a different stratosphere in terms of ambition and on field competency. The great irony, of course, is that in terms of financial power, Spurs are not just their equals, but their superiors. And yet in terms of expectations and drive to succeed, we have more in common with the likes of Fulham and Brentford, than Arsenal and Chelsea. 

What was once a fiercely contested local rivalry — amongst the biggest in football — has devolved into a one-sided farce. Arsenal barely got out of second gear, and yet looked light years ahead of us. One look at the respective wage bill for each club, at their record signings — indeed at their recruitment in general over the past few years, confirms the underlying reasons. Arsenal shop at the top table of European football, Spurs shop at Poundland.

When the team fell to Everton on Sunday, their 12th defeat of the season, their 6th in the past 8 games, continuing a dismal run of 1 pt from the past 18, even then there was no real shock. There certainly was no reaction from the club.

The truth is that Daniel Levy doesn’t see success as on field victories. Success to him arrives in pound, and more recently, dollar signs. His eyes are trained westward, casting envious glances at the NFL, and the way in which American sports is commercialized and milked. He sees more room for financial growth in his shiny new cash cow, and he is singular in his focus. 

This highlights the single biggest problem at Tottenham Hotspur. Daniel Levy, its supposed chief executive, isn’t judged on results on the pitch. He never has been. The goals of Tottenham and ENIC (the investment fund of which he is part owner) are diametrically opposed. Success on the pitch requires spending on top transfer fees and high wages — pesky expenses that eat away at the margins the investment firm wants to see. He is rinsing this club, using it to siphon profit into a myriad of shell companies, many of which he and his cronies are also shareholders of. Daniel Levy and his disgraced, federally charged mentor, Joe Lewis, have created a self-sustaining financial racket that will line their pockets for decades to come.

Despite all this, however, there have always been appearances to maintain. The superficial notion that Tottenham remains at least interested in footballing matters. Today, even the pretense of competing is gone, the illusory jolts of ambition he once issued through his various mouthpieces now all but vanished. He has learned over time that fans, media, and the public at large don’t really care for genuine scrutiny, so why bother? 

Levy was once the most trigger happy chairman in football. Acting like a mafia boss, firing his managers the minute things went awry. In recent years, some of the biggest names in world football have been relieved of their duty. Pochettino was fired after years of turning water into wine, years of overachieving. Even reaching a first ever Champions League final counted for nothing in the end. Mourinho was inexplicably fired with the team in 7^th, and with a League Cup final less than a week away. Nuno, whose Forest side currently sit 11 places and 17 pts above Tottenham, was fired in 8^th. Antonio Conte was actually 4^th at his time of sacking. 

Ange Postecoglou sits 15^th in the table. He has the lowest PPG this season of any manager in Spurs history — yes, lower even than Christian Gross. His side have lost as many games (12), at this stage in a season than any other Spurs side in history. The only three sides in the Premier League to have lost more this season, Wolves, Leicester, and Southampton, all sit in the relegation zone. He’s lost 12 games out of the last 22; taken 30pts from the last 84 available; 1 win in 9 — against bottom club Southampton. The stats, whichever way you slice them, make for horrible reading. 

His side are not just displaying relegation like form — they are statistically one of the worst sides in the league, and actively drifting into a relegation fight. And yet…the Australian is not only still here, but appears to retain the full backing of the ownership. The club are apparently perfectly fine with what should be an entirely untenable situation. 

So what changed? Largely the stadium, and the head-spinning revenues it now brings in to line ENIC coffers. Despite the team’s woeful form, the tills are still ringing and the money still streaming in. Football has become so much of an afterthought, that even languishing near the relegation zone doesn’t hasten the powers that be into action. Scott Munn, who apparently does exist, Johan Lange, the technical staff — all just a facade to distract while the executives pilfer as much profit as possible. 

But also, aside from football’s decreasing importance at Tottenham Hotspur football club; there is the issue of personality. While Ange appears a broken man now, the latest to fall foul of football’s equivalent of Voldemort, a malevolent being who sucks all sporting life force from victims until all that’s left is a cold, grey husk…he is still singing from the Levy hymnbook. He’s not speaking in riddles about how badly he’s been backed, like Poch, or outright lampooning him in front of the world, like Conte. Externally at least, he’s still taking the blame and insisting he can get it right with whatever he’s given. This is music to Voldem—Levy’s ears, and as long as that remains the case, anything bar actual relegation will likely suffice. In Levy’s Tottenham, it isn’t excellence or competency that’s required from managers; it’s obedience. 

In many ways the current situation is a microcosm of what Tottenham has become. Fail to back some of the most decorated managers in the game, but show unwavering support to a man whose greatest achievement was winning the Scottish SPL; a league ranked globally lower than the MLS. The truth is that Postecoglou being hired in the first place was a damning indictment of how low the standards have fallen at this club. A near 60 year old journeyman from Australia, whose managerial CV includes stints in the A-League, J-League and Scottish SPL, was never top of the list. The Aussie admitted as much himself. But when Arne Slot demanded assurances on backing, Levy baulked. Slot is now sitting pretty with Liverpool at the top of the table, Postecoglou is staring worryingly downwards in 15^th. It’s yet another sliding doors moment for Tottenham Hotspur, where their chairman has again gone the cheaper, easier route, and killed any genuine chance of success the club might have had. Ange was the cheapest, easiest, most pliable manager on the list, which explains not just why he was hired, but more worryingly, why he’s still here. 

And while penny-pinching on players has been a hallmark of the ENIC era, the one thing they used to at least attempt was in hiring proficient managers. Levy’s mantra was always to bring in top managers and have them overachieve with underfunded squads. Even that act of self-preservation is now gone. Where once at least the semblance of on-field competency, and top-level pedigree, was required; now only fealty to the ownership — the continued refraining from ever daring to point the fingers at the lack of backing, is needed. 

The unavoidable reality is that the seeds of this latest defeat — and indeed the larger pattern of relegation form — were sown long ago. This is years of mismanagement, years of neglect, coming home to roost. This is an ownership who’s checked out, a fanbase who no longer cares. 

While everyone could see at the end of last season that major improvements were required to a squad that limped home — especially with the increased load of European football — Levy saw the summer’s recruitment as a cost-cutting exercise. He got rid of a raft of experienced players on high wages, and replaced them with kids on peanuts. In total, as Tottenham’s revenues swelled to record levels, their financial position firmly established among Europe’s best, Levy slashed over £40m from the wage bill. What was already the lowest wage-to-turnover ratio in the Premier League got even lower. Even Postecoglou’s appointment itself is looking like an attempt to reign in costs after the expensive appointments of Conte and Mourinho. 

Whether priming for a sale, or simply fattening his own margins, the move to lower the wage bill at a time when bold, ambitious recruitment was desperately required was audacious even by his standards. Tantamount to the waving of a white flag for even attempting to compete at the top of the table. 

And the trend of chronic neglect continues. With more than half of the January window already gone, the squad decimated by one of the worst injury crises in recent history — itself a product of both managerial incompetency and boardroom neglect — and Tottenham sitting significantly closer to the relegation zone than the Top 4…Levy has deigned to sign a grand total of zero outfield players. Forget about the LB, RB, LCB, striker, and attacking players that the club should have signed in the summer — no one, nada, zilch. The sheer levels of neglect and indifference are astonishing.  

Fans Role

Daniel levy has killed everything that was once great about this club. The bravado, the style, the panache, the trophies, and the glory. All consigned to the past, lost among the scrapheap of history, a mere footnote in the commercial juggernaut that has consumed this famous football club. He may have succeeded in his goal, but he is only allowed to continue because of the indifference of a numb, beaten down, and fractured fanbase. He has broken the club so systematically that few dare to even ask for more now. 

Being charged the highest ticket prices in the land to watch relegation level football? Sure. Seeing concessions for the elderly and disabled slashed? No problem. Watching the level of the squad deteriorate to a standard never before seen in the modern era? Who cares?! The standards have fallen so low that one has to wonder: where is the floor now — not just for this ownership, but perhaps more pertinently, for this fanbase? Where is the point at which fans actually take a stand and rise up against what is inarguably the greatest threat this football club has ever faced? We all know what Levy’s end game is. We all know that until he’s milked and exploited the club for every conceivable penny, and drained it dry, he will likely not leave. He is sitting drunk on profit, giddy with success, perfectly fine in his gilded castle of property and event management. Increasing revenues while lowering the wage bill should have been seen as an act of war. Instead it was greeted with the same muted apathy and indifference as always.

We should have listened when Harry Kane left. A kid born just miles from White Hart Lane, who grew up in the academy, and became one of our own. Who wound up so disillusioned with the levels of ambition of the owners, so profoundly frustrated, that he left his home country entirely, and fled to the Bundesliga. He sounded the warning for years, imploring the club to match his ambition and at least try to become competitive. Did they care? Even boyhood academy products are eventually forced to leave in search of success; in search of a club actually interested in delivering trophies. Kane likely saw what Levy had planned — wage cutting, loan signings, free transfers, etc, and said enough is enough. He’d suffered through enough false dawns, being forced to play through injury, and having to work with a new manager every 18 months to know better. In truth it’s nothing new; Carrick, Berbatov, Modric, Bale, Walker, Eriksen, etc — top players have always had to leave this graveyard of ambition and competency. The only surprise is that the one man at the top of the tree, the one common denominator, still gets away with it. One has to wonder how many other ownerships in football would watch the world’s best striker spawn unexpectedly from their academy, and use him not to spearhead their club to success, but as a crutch on which to stand still.

The harsh truth is that Harry Kane was the only thing standing between Spurs remaining marginally competitive, and falling into mid-table mediocrity. With him gone, it’s difficult to imagine Tottenham as anything other than also-rans. Short of making up for the chronic lack of ambition that forced him to leave, Levy has used his departure as an opportunity to tighten the ship, slash costs, and generally bring the entire level of the club back down to more manageable (profitable) levels. It’s a shameful, disgraceful dereliction of duty from a man whose sole purpose should be to ensure the on pitch success of Tottenham Hotspur. 

Levy once said that the stadium would enable Tottenham to compete with the elite. Did he mean in the Forbes list? The Deloitte money league? Because those are the only lists the club have actually moved up on. On the pitch, where it actually matters, the team is moving inexorably backwards. Remember the 90s? No, this isn’t like the 90s. This is worse. We won trophies in the 90s. We had hope. We signed world class players. We have none of that now. All we have is a gleaming corporate theme park, and a relentless, multi-headed money printing machine.

It’s simple. We’ve got our Tottenham back.

Daniel Levy

Perhaps Levy was right when he crowed at a sham supporters forum that “we’ve got our Tottenham back.” Spurs have come full circle. In the intervening quarter century since ENIC’s takeover, Levy has become a billionaire, and the team is right back where they started — 15th place, firmly ensconced in mid-table, and more likely to join the relegation fight than any charge for the title. It is a shocking, horrific example of corporate greed over social and sporting custodianship. He would have fired himself a thousand times over by now, had football ever been even a tangential parameter by which he was judged. But he isn’t. Profit, revenues, margins are the only thing that matter to Tottenham’s board of “footballing” directors. Levy, Cullen, Collecott et al., none have any expertise or even interest in football beyond financial gain. Tottenham Hotspur in its modern incarnation is little more than a real estate investment company masquerading as a multi-sport entertainment venue, feeding off the fading legacy of hundred and forty year old football club. 

It is now abundantly clear where football sits on the list of priorities at ENIC investment corp — if it makes it on there at all. A cursory glance at Tavistock group’s list of corporate entities — and Tottenham’s respective position —illustrates this clearly. The warning signs we’ve all seen over the past few years, of drifting back into mid-table mediocrity — or worse — have become a reality. And the saddest, most damning part of all, is that none of this is by accident. The club is exactly where it’s meant to be; exactly where its owners have put it. 

It might seem like hyperbole, but for many of us who grew up supporting this great club, the club we once loved is now long gone. Until the rot is removed at its source, it will continue to fester, eating away at its foundations, eroding its DNA, and tarnishing its name until there is nothing left to consume.

Never have Keith Burkinshaw’s words been more apt.

There used to be a football club over there

Keith Burkinshaw