Martin Samuel from The Times makes some good points
Tottenham’s fun times are starting now Daniel Levy has gone? Really?
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Only now that Daniel Levy has gone can his greatest achievement as the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur be revealed. Imagine doing 25 years as a minority shareholder resisting the bold intentions of Joe Lewis and his Enic group to spend, spend, spend.
Who knew? Despite his title and status, we always thought of Levy as a very well-remunerated employee, doing his boss’s bidding.
That he was as good as sacked appears to confirm this. If he appeared frugal and prioritised Tottenham as a business entity, it was because that was the policy demanded.
Supporters were angry, managers frustrated, Tottenham often appeared on the brink of a breakthrough only to retreat at a vital moment. Yet that was Levy’s job, to run the tightest ship. In many ways, it worked. Levy’s acumen built the country’s best stadium, an equally admired training ground, and it helped establish Tottenham in English football’s elite. Yet on the day he left that was all chopped liver. “More wins, more often,” was the brief from those who remain. “Generations of the Lewis family support this special football club and they want what the fans want.”
It emerged that Levy was not aware he would be leaving Spurs until the morning of the announcement
MARC ATKINS/MARK LEECH SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES
Really, so what was Levy doing for a quarter of century? Going rogue? It might be the Lewis family that is now in charge — siblings Vivienne and Charlie — but nobody told their father Joe how to run his affairs. Harry Redknapp found that out the day he was sacked. Redknapp’s future was in the balance. He knew Tottenham had spoken to other managers, including Brendan Rodgers and maybe André Villas-Boas, about his job, and his time there looked to be coming to an end; but Levy was keeping his options open and had also discussed the possibility of a contract extension. Paul Stretford, Redknapp’s agent, was negotiating with Levy, while Lewis was present on speakerphone. Redknapp was told it was Lewis’s intervention that brought the conversation to an abrupt end with words both brutal and profane. Put it like this: there was absolutely no doubt, in that room, who ran Tottenham. Not Levy.
So, go in a different direction, but unless there has been an epiphany at Enic, the idea that Levy and the owners were pulling in opposite directions seems far-fetched. At any time, a new strategy could have been handed down. Had Lewis, or Enic, wished to spend as Liverpool have done this summer, financial rules permitting, it could have happened. Hell, had anyone above wanted Levy to stop breaking Crystal Palace’s nuts over the fee for Eberechi Eze, the same applies.
Levy may have enjoyed his reputation as the toughest negotiator, but it had to chime with what the owners demanded.
If it was only Levy’s ego making Tottenham lose good signings that Enic were happy to finance, he would have been swiftly reined in.
Indeed, if the plan is to take the shackles off, why has this decision happened only after the summer transfer window has closed? Tottenham missed out on Eze and Morgan Gibbs-White when a truly ambitious offer with urgent timing could have quickly closed both deals. If Levy was the obstacle to that, why was he still in a job? Tottenham won the Europa League final on May 21, the summer transfer window opened on June 16. That’s almost a month in which Levy could have left on the highest of highs.
First trophy in 17 years, Champions League football in the offing, bright future ahead. Instead he stayed on, drove a few more hard bargains, saw another couple of big-ticket items slip through his grasp. If his plan was so very different to that of the owners, it makes no sense. In reality, Levy was so unaware of his impending doom that he still had meetings in his diary on the day he was sacked.
Taking Tottenham forward is their chief executive Vinai Venkatesham, who held the same role at Woolwich from September 2020 to the end of the 2023-24 season, a glorious period in which the club won the 2023 Community Shield. He was at Woolwich in a variety of roles for 14 years, but without the responsibility he will have now.
Let’s face it, nobody blames the chief commercial officer if the team come sixth. It’s not as if Spurs have recruited David Dein, the boardroom architect of the Arsène Wenger years.
The new non-executive chairman is Peter Charrington, who has deep Lewis family connections as a director of Enic and a senior partner at Nexus Luxury, a company that operates the Albany resort in the Bahamas, co-owned by Tavistock Group, the investment vehicle of Joe Lewis. Charrington is an ally of Vivienne Lewis but his background is private banking, luxury real estate and wealth management — not football. He seems a man more versed in monetising Spurs for their owners than building a team to match Liverpool, so policy over the next 12 months will be interesting.
Say what you like about Levy, but he was very good at what he was asked to do, and it is very unlikely that remit ever included spending whatever it took to win the title. If that is now the primary interest of Tottenham’s new regime — “more wins, more often” — wouldn’t his football experience still make him the best man for that job? Go on, bid the extra £5 million for Eze, Daniel. Blow Nottingham Forest out of the water, mate.
Ironically, if Levy has worked within Enic’s limitations for decades, as seems likely, he may end up feeling as short-changed as his managers.
He would be understandably aggrieved at not being asked to stick around for the fun part; if there is, of course, a fun part. We shall see.
