Kane Gone, ENIC Pout
Profit Before Glory
With the sale of Harry ‘he’s one of our own’ Kane – arguably the finest player in Tottenham Hotspur’s history – ENIC’s Daniel Levy-led ownership of Spurs has now entered injury time at the end of borrowed time for fans.
The club will inevitably point out that Kane’s refusal to sign a new contract left them with no choice but to cash in their only world-class player. That the ignominy of Kane turning out in the colours of another English club has been avoided will presumably also be offered as a sop to dismayed supporters. But out of sight in Germany will not mean out of mind. Kane’s departure will reprise the start of ENIC’s tenure when another home-grown idol decided Tottenham could not fulfil his sporting ambitions. In the two decades since Sol Campbell did the unthinkable by crossing the north-London divide – the ENIC era – Spurs have added a solitary League Cup to their honours list, while Carrick, Berbatov, Bale, Modric, Walker, and now Kane have reached the same inexorable conclusion: Tottenham Hotspur ain’t where it’s at.
Of course, no rational fan will say Spurs have any divine right to silverware, particularly in the epoch of oligarchs and oil states. However, they are now fully entitled to recoil at being charged the most expensive ticket prices in the Premier League following a season where the club failed to secure participation in even Europe’s third-tier competition. Until now, the consensus among the quiet majority of Spurs supporters has been to rebut the Twitter firebrands who regularly and carelessly lean into antisemitic tropes when casting Daniel Levy as an arch-villain. Lest it be forgotten, two of the three chairmen who came before Levy at White Hart Lane took the club to the brink when rebuilding single stands at the old ground. By contrast, Levy has successfully delivered a shimmering 21st Century billion-pound footballing cathedral. Furthermore, anyone who endured the dismal football – and relegation peril – that comprised the Alan Sugar years will continue to warm their hands on memories of two title challenges under Mauricio Pochettino and a thrilling run to the final of the Champions League in the spring of 2019.
However, since those halcyon days, Levy has repeatedly stubbed his toe when making the big calls. The inexplicable decision to replace the beloved Pochettino with the reviled Jose Mourinho, the tone-deaf furloughing of staff during the Covid-19 pandemic (which thankfully he walked back on), the shameful dalliance with the European Super League, the appointment of Fabio Paratici as managing director of football despite his involvement in the Juventus scandal that ultimately saw the Italian banned from football for 30 months, the promise to return to Tottenham’s swashbuckling ‘DNA’ after the miserable Mourinho season’s and subsequent appointment – following a shambolic search – of the ultra-cautious Nuno. The hiring and firing of Antonio Conte. The replacement of Conte with his assistant Cristian Stellini, only to immediately jettison him for Ryan Mason. And on. And on.
Against this backdrop, little wonder that a growing rank of fans called for Levy to go as last season reached its anti-climax. The appointment of Ange Postecoglu over the summer, however, appeared to offer the embattled chairman some respite – even in the wake of the announcement that billionaire Joe Lewis, whose family ultimately own Spurs, was indicted for insider trading in New York. It is a testament to the Australian coach’s undoubted charisma – and perhaps the desperation of Spurs fans to grasp and nurture any sapling of hope – that optimism grew in pre-season. That was until – on the literal eve of the new campaign – news broke that Spurs had accepted Bayern Munich’s bid for Kane, the man expected to spearhead as captain the longed-for renaissance under Postecoglu.
Depressingly there is little prospect of regime change in N17. Tottenham is privately owned, meaning ENIC and Levy will cede control on their terms and only for the right price. There is no possibility of fans raising the circa £2 billion the club is said to be worth. As such, the only alternative to ENIC is some other venture capitalists espousing profit over glory or, worse still, a further unpalatable sports-washing assault on English football by a human rights-abusing nation-state, which really is no choice at all.
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10 Comments
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12/08/2023 @ 3:57 pm
Possibly there is no one who can afford buying Spurs. We had the chance because the same people who bought Newcastle came and Levy showed them the door. We will never win anything as long that ENIC and Levy are at the club. GET OUT YOU RUINED OUR CLUB. PROFIT IS THE ONLY THING YOU WANT. DAM YOU.
12/08/2023 @ 4:14 pm
Nonsense. Spurs infrastructure has drastically improved since Levy came. He has put everything in place to make the team successful on the pitch but the managers and players haven’t done it and he is not to blame for billionaires taking over other clubs and not complying with financial fair play.
12/08/2023 @ 6:17 pm
Agreed.
Oh but nobody is allowed to be truthful, reasoned or logical, we should all just be Levy bashing for the sake of it.
& yes, he has his faults & has done some strange stuff over the years but Harry Kane being sold for £100+m, at 30 years of age, with 1 year left on a contract is simply a fantastically genius piece of business.
& let’s have it right & sorry if a fact gets in the way of the truth, the manager & THFC knew Harry Kane was not going to sign a new contract, Ange has said that he knew upon taking the job, so nobody has stuffed THFC 2 days before season starts, not Harry & not Daniel Levy.
12/08/2023 @ 4:18 pm
Someone who actually talks sense!! Thank you!! We have had some world class players who have passed through the doors at Spurs but no matter who is in charge they are never fully backed to get that final piece of the jigsaw which in Poch’s case, was a travesty. Given his resources he was a gaucho Harry Potter!! One bad run he gets sacked! Sadly Joe Lewis has no interest in football and Daniel Levy is under the illusion that he understands football, he doesn’t remotely. He will never entrust a real director of football just chancers who talk a good game and to my amazement with all his business acumen Levy falls for it, how?? He misses the point that in nearly all cases, the more silverware a club has the more appealing it is to players, coaches, sponsors, investors etc etc. You could then justifiably ask £2bn plus if you decide to sell. Sadly Spurs are relying on becoming an entertainment centre not a club striving for success on the pitch. This makes a mockery of the consistent support the fans give the club and this has now leaked to the players who are now thinking what’s the point. Soon the fans will start to think the same and maybe only maybe Levy may realise he shocking bad at reading the room and actually his time is up and ENIC should sell up before their ‘brand’ is playing in the championship. All said and done good luck to Ange and the players who still care…
12/08/2023 @ 4:38 pm
IF ONLY…..
If only we had won against Liverpool.
If only we had sold to some oligarch Jose would have bought success
If only Conte didn’t throw his toys out
If only Harry had stayed for 1 more year
If only we could win some silverware.
If only we could win the league.
I won’t hold my breath
But I will still be Spurs till the day I die
12/08/2023 @ 5:58 pm
Levy is not the astute business man he is made out to be. Look at the top ten richest clubs in the world – apart from spurs all of them have won several trophies during the ENIC era. Like the spurs I loved as a little boy, the big clubs buy the top players and rarely sell their stars. Imagine if we could have played Modric and Bale alongside Kane, Son and Dele in the Champions League final against Liverpool. We would have won the game and from there kicked on to win other titles. Why doesn’t Levy understand that success on the pitch, apart from making money in the long run, attracts the top players. If he did Kane would be looking for goals at Brentford tomorrow rather than tonight against Leipzig, maybe providing an assist for Mpappe to open his account in the Premier League rather than Muller in the Teutonic farmer’s league.
12/08/2023 @ 7:30 pm
I’m proud we’re not dictator-owned. I’m happy that we’re playing fun football again. I’m super excited for what the aussie will bring to the table. I’m very curious about which new players will rise to the occasion when there’s a big hole in the squad left by Kane. I would be absolutely delirious if we won anything major “soon”. I will still be very, very happy as long as we’re playing fun, optimistic, daring, spursy football regardless if we win it or not.
And I’m sick over my head over all the haters who seems to think that they know so much football and that Levy knows jack shit – and think that a leadership change should actually bring about something better. Bah.
13/08/2023 @ 12:04 am
Peter you sound like you get a paycheck from Enic.
14/08/2023 @ 10:54 pm
I could use a fat one. I doubt they’d cut me one though :-(
13/08/2023 @ 9:04 am
At least we are not owned body and soul by those who its seems are hell bent in trying to replicate football and golf competitions, in order to sate an increasing appetite of letting the world know that their money is everything, with tradition and loyalty worth nothing. The idea of just throwing money at something until it gives in, presents as rather repugnant and its taking short cuts, insulting those who love the game and who want to compete on a level playing field. That said, supporters of our club do their causes little justice while they remain fractured and in constant disagreement. This is what the owners want, a supporter base who cannot unite to make them more accountable for their actions. It would be interesting if the club could be purchased and owned by the supporters, who’s charter could be to not to put profit ahead of anything else and actually prioritize creating a winning team with everyone enjoying what the club is achieving together.