Levy / ENIC

[Guido 🇺🇦]

The difference is that I have absolutely zero emotional investment in high street stores. I might (actually I do) have a predilection for Marks and Spencer’s delicious men’s knitwear, but I do not ‘expect’ anything from them. They are a neutral service provider. They can neither impress me or disappoint me.

As Bill Madrid suggests, it comes down to whether you think Spurs are ENIC holding company or Tottenham Hotspur FC.

For us to care about the club, we have to think it’s the latter. And, as such, I hold the latter to a higher standard.

Nothing you say is technically incorrect. But I would suggest that if we talk about the ‘spirit’ of a club, they are in a position to support their staff without any assistance.

The assistance is available to EVERY PAYE employee, no matter if they work for a tiny independent company as the only employee or are from multi-conglomerate employing tens of thousands of people. The furlough scheme is available to every business and is a plee from the government to use it rather than make redundant those employees.

It doesn't matter whether you "support" something or not, it has nothing to do with a business having had it's business stopped and revenue stream cut and having to cut it's cloth accordingly to this situation.

 

[Blanchflower]

I’m torn on this.

On one hand, I really dislike the hypocrisy of people who are ardent supporters of capitalism until the industry of football gets mentioned. With that in mind, ownership is definitely within their legal rights to use the scheme to protect their business.

However there’s the moral issue. Our majority shareholder is a tax evading billionaire, the club has turned a massive profit for the last 2 years, and the wages-to-turnover ratio is much lower than our competitors. The club is based in one of the poorest wards in the entire country, and I would assume is a big employer of locals . The optics, PR, an erosion of local goodwill make this so, so bad.

Levy was right in his statements that these aren’t normal times and things will be different once this is over, but I think the club board has completely misread the mood of the room.

There’s also the issue of being seen to be trying to back players/coaches into a corner and hanging them out to dry.

The fact Joe Lewis is a tax exile is irrelevant - the club pays him no money, so his personal tax liability from the club is the same no matter where he is based.

Meanwhile the club operates within the UK and pays, generates and collects huge amounts of tax (NI, PAYE, Corporation Tax, VAT, Stamp Duty, etc).

 

[BernardMatthews]

It's the difference between seeing us as Hotspur (London) Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. A club is an artificial extended family. We should act like one and look after the most vulnerable members thereof

The company my other half works for is massive. But family run / owned still ultimately.

Family have created a fund, all board members taking pay cuts and all executives taking pay cuts and giving up bonuses so all furloughed staff can be topped up to 100%.

And yes they have to use the furlough scheme but at least people affected by this at the bottom feel like the people at the top care.

And talking about a company with nearer 500k employees worldwide than 550.
So I think it just depends on your ultimate values as a human being and how you lead a company.

Levy and Lewis behind him have shown how they think. But I don’t think we should be surprised by their choice either. The money side has always been the driver for ENIC.

 

[hiatus]

I think a lot less people would have an issue with this if ENIC topped off the staff wages with the additional 20%. I know some are against accepting any taxpaper income, but for me its the fact that the club won't make the staff whole that bothers me personally.

 

[Devanteswing]

The company my other half works for is massive. But family run / owned still ultimately.

Family have created a fund, all board members taking pay cuts and all executives taking pay cuts and giving up bonuses so all furloughed staff can be topped up to 100%.

And yes they have to use the furlough scheme but at least people affected by this at the bottom feel like the people at the top care.

And talking about a company with nearer 500k employees worldwide than 550.
So I think it just depends on your ultimate values as a human being and how you lead a company.

Levy and Lewis behind him have shown how they think. But I don’t think we should be surprised by their choice either. The money side has always been the driver for ENIC.

If we employed thousands id get it but a few hundred?
People keep saying it but its true. Furloughing them and not topping up the wages is making a miniscule difference to the business. Its his wages plus the board and players that need to sacrifice to make a difference.

 

[Hrytn]

Liverpool is scrapping plans to furlough many of its staff.

If Spurs don't follow then someone is thick skinned.

 

[hiatus]

What is Daniel Levy's thinking behind Tottenham furlough...

Some key excerpts:

Of Spurs’ 550 non-playing staff, around 40 per cent are being placed on furlough, which means the UK government paying 80 per cent of their wages up to £2,500 per month. Those that have been furloughed are members of staff who can’t do their job from home — like, for instance, workers at the currently-closed club shop.

...

The decision taken by Levy last week was not one that was universally popular at the club. Some opposed it entirely, others felt it would be sensible to at least hold fire on such a drastic step.

Levy was unmoved though and pressed on. He is not a man too bothered by public perception and his sole focus is doing whatever he feels is needed to keep the club surviving and sustainable. Announcing the decision on March 31 would also give staff who were having their wages reduced the maximum notice ahead of their next payday on April 30.

Principally, Levy made the decision because he is nervous about what lies ahead for Tottenham in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Every club faces a potentially terrifying future but Spurs’ situation is made more acute by their new £1 billion stadium.

Tottenham used up their cash reserves on the stadium, without taking public money, and have not had long enough to build them back up again. With no income for at least the next couple of months — bar a relatively meagre amount from online retail — Levy feels he must strip every cost he can out of the business bar letting staff go, which remains the last resort.

...

Concerns like these are universal for Premier League sides but it is the context of the new stadium that makes Spurs feel they are especially acute for them — since unlike West Ham and Manchester City, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was built using private rather than public money and must be repaid.

Time will tell whether he has been prudent or paranoid, but Levy was quick to recognise the havoc that the current global pandemic would wreak on football. The Athletic understands that soon after the Premier League was halted in mid-March, Levy was already fearing the worst. He viewed player pay cuts as being an inevitable necessity to make up for the shortfall in revenues like television money and anticipated the COVID-19 crisis leaving a number of clubs insolvent.

Levy is said to have feared the Premier League might not return until much later this year or even beyond, and so decided that decisive action was necessary.

...

Tottenham’s decision to furlough non-playing staff could also do damage in other ways. The absence of match-day staff is unlikely to affect results on the pitch but losing recruitment staff might. Senior staff like chief scout Steve Hitchen continue to work on reduced wages but other members of the recruitment team have been placed on furlough. Spurs feel they have already identified their summer targets and so can absorb the temporary losses but there are those that fear they might lose ground to rivals over the longer term. Again, the coming months and possibly even years will be telling.

In some respects, the players and many of those running the clubs are in agreement. Both feel that individuals and businesses that earn more than players and football clubs have been the subject of far less financial censure.

A club like Spurs will always be the subject of greater scrutiny though, since there is such an emotional investment made by supporters and a yearning for them to do the “right” thing. This was also the case with Liverpool and is a major reason why they decided to u-turn on their original decision.

Spurs will also always be a lightning rod for as long as they are owned by billionaire Joe Lewis, who is worth in excess of £4 billion and lives as a tax exile in the Bahamas. The optics of taking government money while Lewis continues not to put his own cash into the club are awful. Tottenham will feel they have always been self-sufficient and after not taking public money for the stadium, build are entitled to do so now in a time of unprecedented hardship.

 

[TeamSpirit™]

The fact Joe Lewis is a tax exile is irrelevant - the club pays him no money, so his personal tax liability from the club is the same no matter where he is based.

Meanwhile the club operates within the UK and pays, generates and collects huge amounts of tax (NI, PAYE, Corporation Tax, VAT, Stamp Duty, etc).

Hence why I mentioned it in the context of morality not business.

 

[Guido 🇺🇦]

Use furlough. The government scheme allows it.

The moral side of it is the problem here for many. Not just on this forum but through out the country. Football is a business. We all get that. Is it a business like any other in the UK. That is debatable.


But if you do use the scheme then you can pay the 20% difference out of your pocket to help the little guy. The one who will be struggling most in all this.
Levy / Lewis / ENIC whoever could do that. What is it £1m over 3 months. (The length of the scheme currently). Other football clubs are doing this. Other companies outside of football are doing this.


So done with the club right now. But at the end of the day Just some men running around on grass. Bigger things in the world at the moment.

Agree with most of this.

Where I disagree slightly is actually football is perhaps more important than people give it credit for. It's as important as art (music and painting). It's important as it's a cultural identity for those that follow it passionately and even those that have zero interest in the game still take pride in their local team getting to the 4th round of the FA Cup for example with the whole town feeling the excitement. It's an important relief from the humdrum of everyday life, be that someone stuck in a wheelchair or hospital bed, be that a guy/girl who's struggling to get a job (in normal times), or from the many just stuck in the rat race working hard every day doing jobs that are just mundane. All debatable I know and different things to different people but there was a reason why the women's game flourished during the 2nd world war, it was because there was no men's football and there was an absolute need for it to take the minds of thousands who were anxious over their futures and the futures and well being of their loved ones. It was important enough to have 20k people watch women play during a time of national emergency.

Why has no one got an issue with BA furloughing it's staff? A company that generates revenues of £13b!!!

If needs be I can make an argument that Football (and ALL its individual clubs) is more important business and has a bigger impact on the well being of the British people (and others further afield) than British Airways the airline that's destroying the planet when it's operational.

 

[Guido 🇺🇦]

I’m torn on this.

On one hand, I really dislike the hypocrisy of people who are ardent supporters of capitalism until the industry of football gets mentioned. With that in mind, ownership is definitely within their legal rights to use the scheme to protect their business.

However there’s the moral issue. Our majority shareholder is a tax evading billionaire, the club has turned a massive profit for the last 2 years, and the wages-to-turnover ratio is much lower than our competitors. The club is based in one of the poorest wards in the entire country, and I would assume is a big employer of locals . The optics, PR, an erosion of local goodwill make this so, so bad.

Levy was right in his statements that these aren’t normal times and things will be different once this is over, but I think the club board has completely misread the mood of the room.

There’s also the issue of being seen to be trying to back players/coaches into a corner and hanging them out to dry.

Football clubs will go out of business, those clubs will employ no one and will serve no purpose top the local community.

 

[TeamSpirit™]

Football clubs will go out of business, those clubs will employ no one and will serve no purpose top the local community.

Spurs are not one of those clubs.

 

[Team Tanguy]

So are there any arguments in favour of Spurs using Furlough that don't involve whataboutery or defeatism?

 

[Guido 🇺🇦]

Spurs are not one of those clubs.

So it should only apply to the clubs that are poorly run?

 

[Guido 🇺🇦]

I think a lot less people would have an issue with this if ENIC topped off the staff wages with the additional 20%. I know some are against accepting any taxpaper income, but for me its the fact that the club won't make the staff whole that bothers me personally.

Whilst I've been defending the approach the club has taken, I completly agree that this scenario sits far better.

I can only speak if I were the boss and what I do in their shoes and I would make up the difference up if and when the players & Managers wages are reduced and/or when you come out the other side of this (when football returns) that you make good the 20% on those furloughed.

 

[TeamSpirit™]

So it should only apply to the clubs that are poorly run?

No it should apply to clubs whose income and highest earners do not pass a certain threshold. What that threshold is is up for debate.

 

[ShutUpPatrik]

So are there any arguments in favour of Spurs using Furlough that don't involve whataboutery or defeatism?

Spurs are a big employer, Spurs are a big tax payer. I have no problem with them utilizing the furlough scheme where applicable to prevent having to fire people during a period were we have little to no money going in.

Considering how much Spurs pays in taxes in a year and how that goes into funding the NHS and other parts of British infrastructure I cannot see the British government having a problem with it either. They want to keep the big industries going and football is a big industry in the UK.

 

[Park Lane Mark Twain]

I recall reading somewhere or someone saying that if our cash drops below a certain amount that our bond interest of 2.66% goes up. Can anyone such as Spursidol etc help me dig anything out please?

Hope everyone is safe and in positive spirits

 

[kwitie]

The Daily fail is reporting that Daniel’s latest wheeze is that he’s considering putting the ground staff to work in his private estate.

Tottenham chief Daniel Levy may employ ground staff at private estate

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is reportedly considering putting the club's ground staff who have not been furloughed to work on his private estate during the coronavirus outbreak.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Don’t ever change Daniel

 

[ShutUpPatrik]

The Daily fail is reporting that Daniel’s latest wheeze is that he’s considering putting the ground staff to work in his private estate.

Tottenham chief Daniel Levy may employ ground staff at private estate

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is reportedly considering putting the club's ground staff who have not been furloughed to work on his private estate during the coronavirus outbreak.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Don’t ever change Daniel

This was in the Telegraph yesterday and the report made it clear that he would more or less rent them from the club and pay them out of his own pocket. Which to me screams that Lewis has ordered him to cut costs where he can and he's now employing some creative ways to keep people employed.

 

[BernardMatthews]

He must have moved. Guess all that bonus money been invested in a bigger property.

His place before I would not describe as an “estate”.