I've never heard of this German journalist before, but you can't put much faith in the opinion of someone who claims that a major motivation for purchasing Son is South Korean merchandising.
Merchandising accounted for £9m of Tottenham Hotspur's turnover during the 2011-12 season (couldn't find anything more recent that listed merch as a separate number, but they won't have changed
that much in three years -
source). Remember that's the total... the majority of that will come from the UK.
So even if Son's transfer gives us an unrealistically massive merchandising boost in South Korea, and it rose to be 10% of our total merch market... and even if our merch market has doubled in the past 3 years (which it definitely hasn't), that would still only be £1.8m per year in South Korean merchandising revenue.
For a £20m investment? Makes no sense at all.
There are twice as many Koreans living in the UK than in Germany. So when Rafa Honigstein talks about the 300 Koreans who regularly attend Leverkusen games; you could realistically up that number to 600 for Spurs. But an extra 600 people on the season ticket waiting list isn't actually going to affect Tottenham's bottom line significantly.
There's only one type of player that will achieve that. A type of player who would add
30 or 40 times the amount that a Korean fan-base would generate... Players who would improve our league position.
And I know some people will never be convinced of this, but I personally believe Levy is smart enough to understand that. And that he's genuinely trying to buy players that will improve the team. One thing you can be certain of though - he's not spending £20m on a player in the hope of boosting overseas merchandising by a small number, or to attract another 600 local fans. The massive potential jump in income for us comes from improving our league position just one notch. That's got to be the goal of any major investment for Levy.