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Daniel Levy - Chairman

Finney Is Back said:
They could introduce a betting Levy as a percentage of all bets taken. However that tax would just be passed onto the customer or at the very least just priced into the book.
I guess the government could indeed introduce a new law stating that gambling companies have to pay a license fee to operate, of course this would have to apply to all betting companies (including the lottery providers). As this would drive some of the smaller operators out of the UK I would imagine that the bigger boys would probably not mind paying this too much.
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I was thinking more that the govt could put a max level of transfer pricing out of the country before declaring UK profits. Easily done, just not in keeping with a thriving private sector.
 
Anyway, bringing the debate back to the start point.

Levy is a businessman and was faced with stark decisions at the start of this crisis.

He decided that everyone has to take a small pay cut, so all workers only get 80% (except players, who are untouchable obviously as their contracts don't allow it).

Everyone that can do their job from home... keep them working.
Everyone that cannot do their job from home... make them redundant or use the gov't furlough scheme...obviously do the latter.

Those were the choices, it is bizarre that other clubs didn't follow suit - they have sent people home to play in the sunshine on full pay! That just shows how "well run" they are and how far away from the real world their finances are.

The "bad PR" is not going to affect us economically.
Investors want to invest in a well-run company, that takes the correct advantage of legal situations.
 
Bullet said:
Anyway, bringing the debate back to the start point.

Levy is a businessman and was faced with stark decisions at the start of this crisis.

He decided that everyone has to take a small pay cut, so all workers only get 80% (except players, who are untouchable obviously as their contracts don't allow it).

Everyone that can do their job from home... keep them working.
Everyone that cannot do their job from home... make them redundant or use the gov't furlough scheme...obviously do the latter.

Those were the choices, it is bizarre that other clubs didn't follow suit - they have sent people home to play in the sunshine on full pay! That just shows how "well run" they are and how far away from the real world their finances are.

The "bad PR" is not going to affect us economically.
Investors want to invest in a well-run company, that takes the correct advantage of legal situations.
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I hope he opens us up to investors. If he and Lewis invite investment for equity then we will know their own financial position isn’t their only priority (especially in light of them already being 2000%+ up on their investment.
 
Finney Is Back said:
I'm not sure they sell that many shirts really (unless we signed Messi or Ronaldo). Again, other than perhaps those two I'm not sure that any attract sponsors. On pitch success attracts sponsors.
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What attracts sponsors is outreach, I worked on some sponsorship deals in past and you calculate your deal on exposure, yes the best teams take a premium but the second tier isn’t that far behind because of A) you can’t all sponsor the big boys B) no one can guarantee who are the big boys and C) The recent TV deals has done a lot of clubs work for them.

What’s overlooked here is Levy’s work with the NFL and 3rd party events such as boxing, concerts and Rugby where the club will gain more coverage and therefore increase any value to sponsors.

Yes winning would help but our sponsor deals are better than Emirates Marketing Project if you remove the internal investment from Etihad which is fudged. Because Spurs is a organically bigger club globally and sponsors know that.
 
Bullet said:
Anyway, bringing the debate back to the start point.

Levy is a businessman and was faced with stark decisions at the start of this crisis.

He decided that everyone has to take a small pay cut, so all workers only get 80% (except players, who are untouchable obviously as their contracts don't allow it).

Everyone that can do their job from home... keep them working.
Everyone that cannot do their job from home... make them redundant or use the gov't furlough scheme...obviously do the latter.

Those were the choices, it is bizarre that other clubs didn't follow suit - they have sent people home to play in the sunshine on full pay! That just shows how "well run" they are and how far away from the real world their finances are.

The "bad PR" is not going to affect us economically.
Investors want to invest in a well-run company, that takes the correct advantage of legal situations.
Click to expand...

101 business, deal with what you know and take as many variables out. Levy done that. Fair play
 
Finney Is Back said:
I guess if that is what Lewis is judging him on then fair enough. Wouldn't it be lovely though to have owners that want to win things instead of their primary objective being to maximise their own investment?
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They have put us into more Semi Finals and Finals than most and the team hasn’t got over the line. A lot of Poch’s decisions were baffling in some games, and I love Poch. That’s not the boards fault, the coin dropped the other side on a number of occasions like when we were beat by a terrible Pompey in a semi.

End of the day the model has been increase revenue and increase by bit the wages and transfer spend, it’s a reason we pay Kane and Ndombele 200k a week.

They see that as a longer term plan than feast or famine. As fans who support unconditionally I don’t see there has been a major fudge up that should really question the club.

For me the clubs unrecognisable from that of the 90s when we were looking at 40 points and maybe a cup run.

As for the comments of years always laden with trophies, that’s the biggest fallacy in the game. We won the league in 61, purchased the best striker in the world and won nothing after, but we take sound bites like “the games about glory” and bash Levy like it was always the way, it wasn’t. Hoddle, Waddle, Gough, Gazza, Campbell to name a few all left because we won sod all or didn’t fulfil their ambitions, this period isn’t new, the odd cup and glory Euro night doesn’t explain the fact we were poor in every other cup or league them years and more soo.
 
Grays_1890 said:
What attracts sponsors is outreach, I worked on some sponsorship deals in past and you calculate your deal on exposure, yes the best teams take a premium but the second tier isn’t that far behind because of A) you can’t all sponsor the big boys B) no one can guarantee who are the big boys and C) The recent TV deals has done a lot of clubs work for them.

What’s overlooked here is Levy’s work with the NFL and 3rd party events such as boxing, concerts and Rugby where the club will gain more coverage and therefore increase any value to sponsors.

Yes winning would help but our sponsor deals are better than Emirates Marketing Project if you remove the internal investment from Etihad which is fudged. Because Spurs is a organically bigger club globally and sponsors know that.
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Really?.... OK then, how does our Nike kit manufacturer deal compare to Emirates Marketing Project’s with Puma?

*edit - I just looked it up and it is more than twice as big as ours (and a shorter length deal so in reality considerably better than twice as big).

Emirates Marketing Project: £650 million over 10 years
Us: £450 million over 15 years.

I think that makes clear how sponsorship revenue is linked to success.
 
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Grays_1890 said:
They have put us into more Semi Finals and Finals than most and the team hasn’t got over the line. A lot of Poch’s decisions were baffling in some games, and I love Poch. That’s not the boards fault, the coin dropped the other side on a number of occasions like when we were beat by a terrible Pompey in a semi.

End of the day the model has been increase revenue and increase by bit the wages and transfer spend, it’s a reason we pay Kane and Ndombele 200k a week.

They see that as a longer term plan than feast or famine. As fans who support unconditionally I don’t see there has been a major fudge up that should really question the club.

For me the clubs unrecognisable from that of the 90s when we were looking at 40 points and maybe a cup run.

As for the comments of years always laden with trophies, that’s the biggest fallacy in the game. We won the league in 61, purchased the best striker in the world and won nothing after, but we take sound bites like “the games about glory” and bash Levy like it was always the way, it wasn’t. Hoddle, Waddle, Gough, Gazza, Campbell to name a few all left because we won sod all or didn’t fulfil their ambitions, this period isn’t new, the odd cup and glory Euro night doesn’t explain the fact we were poor in every other cup or league them years and more soo.
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I must’ve dreamt of the FA Cup in 62, ECCWC in 63 and FA Cup in 67. We won 5 major trophies that decade, I’d kill for that now and forever....
 
DubaiSpur said:
Anyway, the Trust have released a pretty measured statement on the whole sordid disaster -

https://www.thstofficial.com/thst-news/thfc-staffing-decisions-amid-covid-19-thst-position

I think it's the most measured take you can get - far more measured than I am at this farce. In short, the Trust clarifies that;

  • there is no top up past 80% - every staff member has had a straight 20 pay cut.
  • Club will apply for furlough money for 220 staff.
  • Casual and matchday staff are also being furloughed.
  • In the furlough cases, the club will pay staff 4/5ths of their wages and then claim that amount back from the government.

I know some people thought the club were topping it up - they aren't.

As for rationale, the Trust acknowledges the arguments made by folk on here as well - the club is in difficult financial circumstances, it was a pressure move on the players to get them to agree to pay cuts,and so on. It isn't condemning the use of the furlough scheme - I would have in the harshest possible terms, so they're more measured than me on that.

However, the Trust also points out that the move utterly, comprehensively backfired. Players have (rightly) seen wage cuts as a means to funnel revenue into club profits and the pockets of the owners - not to pay ordinary working-class staff. I know that's what Levy would have used it for, at least, so I can't really blame the players for banding together and rejecting that out of hand. And all we have to show for it is two weeks of relentlessly atrocious PR, angry staff, angry fans and (no doubt) somewhat warier potential sponsors.

To help the situation, the Trust suggests that Spurs top up the wages of the staff to 400%, guarantee no redundancies until June, and make their reasoning public for why using the furlough for 80% is necessary for the club - if they had done that in the first place, the PR disaster of the last two weeks would have been avoided, but better late than never. After that, the Trust suggests transparency to make it clear to the players where their cut wages will be going (to the staff, foundations, etc.) as a means to get them onside (for the whole league, not just Spurs).

They're all reasonable suggestions. And it offers the Club an out - 'we listened to our fans/Trust, we're clarifying that we will top up all wages to 400%, we will conduct outreach to players, etc.'

I hope the club takes it. It isn't too late to be a responsible actor for once.

I wish we as a fanbase held our owners with just the tiniest bit of accountability, like Liverpool's fanbase does, but that's dreaming. At the least, the Trust's suggestions are a conciliatory way to salvage some PR out of this.
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I can find no sympathy for the top paid players.
Funneling what profits exactly into the clubs coffers?
If the players wage demands drive the club into the ground, then it's OK for them they can leave for another club that will pay them 10s or 100s of thousands of £ per week.
The poor sods who are non playing staff don't have that luxury.
The players do not come out of this at all IMHO.
 
Grays_1890 said:
Sponsors look at viewing figures and coverage not that the club decided to Furlough its staff.

PR isn’t as bad as you make it either, barely mentioned on mainstream news and hasn’t made a front page.

it’s big news in football and Spurs but don’t overplay what level of PR this raises globally, it hasn’t
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That’s not true really. Multiple news outlets have covered the story. I have seen it covered on the BBC and ITV news bulletins at 1, 6 and 10. Sky Sports have talked about it. It was one of the lead stories on the BBC Sport website for a few days. It’s not going to make the front page with everything that is going on. It’s made the back pages though.

I think it’s far too early to tell if this well affect us adversely going forward in terms of PR and sponsorship but more likely to hurt us in the short term than not IMO.
 
Finney Is Back said:
Really?.... OK then, how does our Nike kit manufacturer deal compare to Emirates Marketing Project’s with Puma?

*edit - I just looked it up and it is more than twice as big as ours (and a shorter length deal so in reality considerably better than twice as big).

Emirates Marketing Project: £650 million over 10 years
Us: £450 million over 15 years.

I think that makes clear how sponsorship revenue is linked to success.
Click to expand...
TBF Levy has confirmed a few times our deal is different to everyone else’s in that we have something like retained rights for sales... or something like that
I believe it means:
Everyone else get a lump sum for theirs
We get a smaller lump sum but a % of sales as a “royalty”. That’s how i interpreted it
 
Finney Is Back said:
I must’ve dreamt of the FA Cup in 62, ECCWC in 63 and FA Cup in 67. We won 5 major trophies that decade, I’d kill for that now and forever....
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3 cups over 5 years isn’t the level of glory that people try and pass off. You can’t deny through fact that Spurs as a club has always underachieved, always. Best team by a country mile in 61 and done nothing after. Villa, Everton, Leeds and Forest done more.

It’s a club built on romantic notion and sound bites around years of underachievement, it’s an utter fact.
 
Finney Is Back said:
Really?.... OK then, how does our Nike kit manufacturer deal compare to Emirates Marketing Project’s with Puma?

*edit - I just looked it up and it is more than twice as big as ours (and a shorter length deal so in reality considerably better than twice as big).

Emirates Marketing Project: £650 million over 10 years
Us: £450 million over 15 years.

I think that makes clear how sponsorship revenue is linked to success.
Click to expand...

Wrong the deal covers 6 teams owned by them.

Keep them coming
 
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Bedfordspurs said:
TBF Levy has confirmed a few times our deal is different to everyone else’s in that we have something like retained rights for sales... or something like that
I believe it means:
Everyone else get a lump sum for theirs
We get a smaller lump sum but a % of sales as a “royalty”. That’s how i interpreted it
Click to expand...

Yep it’s incremental
 
Bedfordspurs said:
TBF Levy has confirmed a few times our deal is different to everyone else’s in that we have something like retained rights for sales... or something like that
I believe it means:
Everyone else get a lump sum for theirs
We get a smaller lump sum but a % of sales as a “royalty”. That’s how i interpreted it
Click to expand...
Correct. United and City both have fixed fee deals. It doesn't matter if they sell 1 or 100 million shirts, they will get the same. We get some additional percentage for every shirt/item we sell.
 
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