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Daniel Levy - Former Chairman

The other thing that makes this more brutal / ruthless is that ENIC would absolutely not be in a position to benefit from the value of the club growing like it has, with the potential to push further on from here, were it not for Daniel Levy.

There would not have been another person on the planet with his level of intelligence, strategic vision and business acumen to pull off what he was able to do, in keeping us competitive and regularly in Europe while building a world class stadium and training ground. Combined with the love, passion and obsession he had to make those investments as good as they could possibly be, and spend all hours of the day ensuring it was all executed to the very top level.

They’ll make more on their money because of him, and there’s not another person who could have done the job that he did, with the constraints he had (placed on him by them). One of the ironies.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
And I have said that I think he may not have been the right person to help us take that next step. But I also hate when nuance isn’t applied. But this is the game, he is now seeing the other side of the coin.
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For sure mate - and remember, him leaving doesn't mean he can't also get his narrative out. Counter-snippets emerging from Martin Samuel at The Times that Levy apparently feels he was operating with one hand tied behind his back in terms of owner backing from the Lewises, which forced him to be prudent and focus on diversifying income streams.

The Lewis family will either have to sell, or back up their words about wanting on-pitch success by providing more owner funding. If their only change is to bin Levy for someone who has to operate in exactly the same circumstances, we will see the same results, and Levy will end up the one vindicated. And remember, he's still a major (although not majority) shareholder - think he owns somewhere between 20-25% of the club through his stake in ENIC. So, he'll still be around to do his victory lap, which no doubt will not reflect well on the Lewises if it happens.



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This has, to me, come as a surprise. Whilst I appreciate that some have said that the staff incomings, over the summer, hinted at Daniel leaving it is still a shock to many.

Personally, I think that he had a positive legacy in the way that he has stabilised the club, seen the revamp of the training ground and the building of the stadium. He has also given us solid foundations to rebuild this club.

My criticism would be that, 15 years ago, he should have handed over all footballing decisions to someone else. If that were the case I feel some managers may have been financially backed more and some would not have been let go in such a short space of time.
 
OTOH, an example of why having a different person in charge going forward might be good, it’s the little things that mean bigger things like Hugo’s story of getting a watch engraved with ‘Finalist’.

On one hand, I HATE that this was a story that came out and was used as a stick to beat Daniel with. Because for him, it was a heartfelt gesture. For him, the team getting to the final with their constraints, going through a stadium build, it is a MASSIVE achievement in and of itself. Daniel has always been big on the idea of family, community, doing good for the local area. And I think for him, recognising that achievement was a really good and right thing to do.

But to players that want to win the very top prizes, you can see why it would make them feel a certain way. They don’t want to feel like getting to the final is the achievement. They want to operate with the confidence that they will get to the final and win. This is the sort of confidence that Ange, through sheer force of personality, gave to us in the Europa. Despite having a terrible record In finals, Matt Wells and Ryan Mason said it - we knew we would win.

So it’s that little bit of confidence and arrogance that I think a club needs. It means taking more risks, it means having more belief, and all of these micro indicators add up over the course of a season or the course of years.

I hate that this is the way it is, in a way. Because you’d want the guy doing the ‘right’ thing, recognising achievements for what they are, always thinking about the long term, that guy deserves to get the pay off too. But at the very top level, often those people don’t have within them what makes Levy a great person in that sense. And that might make it a good time for a change.
 
Maybe he has actually walked away and not pushed due to the club now looking at potentially going down the road of dodgy deals etc? he made it clear in the interview that he was against all the loop holes and that he was pretty much by the book. All just my speculation of course.
 
DubaiSpur said:
For sure mate - and remember, him leaving doesn't mean he can't also get his narrative out. Counter-snippets emerging from Martin Samuel at The Times that Levy apparently feels he was operating with one hand tied behind his back in terms of owner backing from the Lewises, which forced him to be prudent and focus on diversifying income streams.

The Lewis family will either have to sell, or back up their words about wanting on-pitch success by providing more owner funding. If their only change is to bin Levy for someone who has to operate in exactly the same circumstances, we will see the same results, and Levy will end up the one vindicated. And remember, he's still a major (although not majority) shareholder - think he owns somewhere between 20-25% of the club through his stake in ENIC. So, he'll still be around to do his victory lap, which no doubt will not reflect well on the Lewises if it happens.



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Agreed - they’re going to have to bring that success now that they’ve set that bar for themselves.

And to be fair, I think they will at least signal a step change in how we operate in the footballing side. The way we moved this summer was different. Maybe the MGW and Eze experiences were examples of us learning to navigate these more treacherous waters in truly competing with the challenging clubs for players for the first time. So hopefully good learnings. But we did operate differently, and I think we’ll go from strength to strength in that respect moving forward.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
Agreed - they’re going to have to bring that success now that they’ve set that bar for themselves.

And to be fair, I think they will at least signal a step change in how we operate in the footballing side. The way we moved this summer was different. Maybe the MGW and Eze experiences were examples of us learning to navigate these more treacherous waters in truly competing with the challenging clubs for players for the first time. So hopefully good learnings. But we did operate differently, and I think we’ll go from strength to strength in that respect moving forward.
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For sure. Much will depend on the financials changing, which we will only be able to see going forward. If it turns out there was indeed an injection of funding this year, it marks only the second or third time they've done this in their 25-year history, the previous one being in summer 2022 after Conte finished 4th and wanted to push on.

The back-to-back attempts to sign Kudus and Gibbs-White within days of each other was certainly a big change that indicated the club felt it had the financing to do so, even without sales. Ditto giving Xavi a 7-year deal on 200k, and Romero getting 200k in his new deal.

There's gigantic headroom to make Tottenham Hotspur a genuine giant - with a wage-to-revenue ratio of under 40% (by far the lowest in the PL) and some £400m of PSR headroom, it is an astonishing position to be in if you're an owner who wants to build a legacy.

Much of that is, genuinely, down to Levy getting us there. But it *has* to be taken advantage of to get us over the line - wages and spending both need to go up.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Feels like it mate. Too much smoke for there not to be a fire, and it tallies with that spate of reports earlier this year about him wanting to stay on in any takeover. Feels like that wouldn't necessarily be what any new buyer would want, since they would want to stamp their own vision on their asset, for good or ill. Especially if they're expecting to pay £3Bn-odd for a blue-chip football club.

One of the other concurrent rumors I've heard is that the Saudis are already tired of funding Saudi Sportswashing Machine - it hasn't given them the geopolitical cachet they expected, and they are looking for an opportunity to exit that investment, without exiting the Premier League as a whole.

We offer far, far, far more in terms of geopolitical heft, than Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Relatively elite London club, so geographically very close to key policymakers at Westminster - investments in London also have the benefit of influencing both the British government and the city's financial elite, who may as well be the global elite given London's global importance. Big new stadium to schmooze those elites with, easy access to the London property market that all sheikhs and other unsavoury characters seem to adore.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is all a buildup to a petrostate investment deal - either the Saudis, or Qatar.
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I’ve been laughed at when I say exactly that about Saudi
And I’ve got my info from guys living and working there with no skin in the game
 
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DubaiSpur said:
For sure. Much will depend on the financials changing, which we will only be able to see going forward. If it turns out there was indeed an injection of funding this year, it marks only the second or third time they've done this in their 25-year history, the previous one being in summer 2022 after Conte finished 4th and wanted to push on.

The back-to-back attempts to sign Kudus and Gibbs-White within days of each other was certainly a big change that indicated the club felt it had the financing to do so, even without sales. Ditto giving Xavi a 7-year deal on 200k, and Romero getting 200k in his new deal.

There's gigantic headroom to make Tottenham Hotspur a genuine giant - with a wage-to-revenue ratio of under 40% (by far the lowest in the PL) and some £400m of PSR headroom, it is an astonishing position to be in if you're an owner who wants to build a legacy.

Much of that is, genuinely, down to Levy getting us there. But it *has* to be taken advantage of to get us over the line - wages and spending both need to go up.
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If there was it hasn’t been seen in the spending and it would mark ally be publicly declared as it was previous
 
DubaiSpur said:
For sure. Much will depend on the financials changing, which we will only be able to see going forward. If it turns out there was indeed an injection of funding this year, it marks only the second or third time they've done this in their 25-year history, the previous one being in summer 2022 after Conte finished 4th and wanted to push on.

The back-to-back attempts to sign Kudus and Gibbs-White within days of each other was certainly a big change that indicated the club felt it had the financing to do so, even without sales. Ditto giving Xavi a 7-year deal on 200k, and Romero getting 200k in his new deal.

There's gigantic headroom to make Tottenham Hotspur a genuine giant - with a wage-to-revenue ratio of under 40% (by far the lowest in the PL) and some £400m of PSR headroom, it is an astonishing position to be in if you're an owner who wants to build a legacy.

Much of that is, genuinely, down to Levy getting us there. But it *has* to be taken advantage of to get us over the line - wages and spending both need to go up.
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Could be exciting times, but it's Spurs, something always happens
 
Tristan Barnett said:
This has, to me, come as a surprise. Whilst I appreciate that some have said that the staff incomings, over the summer, hinted at Daniel leaving it is still a shock to many.

Personally, I think that he had a positive legacy in the way that he has stabilised the club, seen the revamp of the training ground and the building of the stadium. He has also given us solid foundations to rebuild this club.

My criticism would be that, 15 years ago, he should have handed over all footballing decisions to someone else. If that were the case I feel some managers may have been financially backed more and some would not have been let go in such a short space of time.
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Arnesen, comoli, baldini, paratici, pleat...
 
Lilbaz said:
Arnesen, comoli, baldini, paratici, pleat...
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They always had their hands tied by DL. He could never let them have free reign due to the finances. Maybe I should change my view and suggest there should have been someone else involved to make sure that DL stayed out of the football side. That way he would not have the power to remove footballing brains such as those that you mentioned.
 
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