Is Joe Lewis the last of a kind?

Allegations of insider trading against Joe Lewis didn’t just make the financial pages. That’s because even with a 98-metre yacht and an art collection full of Picasso and Matisse, the Bahamas-based billionaire is best known for owning Tottenham Hotspur for more than two decades.

He acquired it from one time market trader Alan Sugar, noted for his remark about how money put into football was like prune juice. Sugar wasn’t sophisticated, but he was street smart.

Lewis, who was released on a $300mn bond secured by his yacht and private plane after entering a not guilty plea in New York, survived big changes in the business of football over two decades.

With multi-club ownership now back in vogue, Spurs chair Daniel Levy and Lewis were ahead of the game in the 1990s and 2000s, when they owned stakes in teams across Europe, including Scotland’s Rangers, Czech Republic’s Slavia Prague, and AEK Athens of Greece. Even then, multi-club ownership raised concerns.

Born in an east London pub in 1937, Lewis now looks like a rare breed in a league where English owners are outnumbered by foreigners, ranging from US private equity types to sovereign wealth funds.

The tycoon officially gave up control of Spurs in October 2022, handing responsibility to a pair of Bahamas-based administrators at the helm of a trust that controls ENIC, the company that owns more than 86 per cent of the club’s shares.

Unspecified Lewis family members are “potential beneficiaries” of the trust but not the man himself. Until that change last October, Lewis was the longest-serving Premier League owner.

Tottenham’s stance is that the charges against Lewis are “a legal matter unconnected with the club”.

But should Lewis’s run-in with the law reignite takeover interest from investors, he and Levy, the potential beneficiary of separate trusts that own nearly 30 per cent of ENIC, have built a club with a reputation for careful financial management, arguably at the expense of the trophy cabinet.

In the decade to 2021/22, no Premier League club made a higher pre-tax profit than Spurs’ £203mn, according to football finance analyst Swiss Ramble, although fans complain at the lack of trophies on the pitch.

Spurs’ revenue totalled £48mn the year before Lewis bought the club, with 46 per cent coming from ticket sales and 25 per cent from television. In 2021/22, the club’s revenue amounted to £444mn, more than nine times higher, with nearly a third coming from TV and less than a quarter from match receipts.

Part of that can be explained by the exponential increase in the value of the Premier League’s broadcast rights. The League reported revenue of £244mn in the year ended July 2000. In the 2022 fiscal year, that figure had smashed through the £3bn mark.

It’s also down to the construction of a longer-term asset. The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, completed in 2019 at a cost of more than £1bn, hasn’t just increased Spurs’ match day revenue; it’s a modern arena that hosts NFL games and music concerts too.

In February, Spurs struck a 15-year partnership with Formula One, the car racing series, to bring karting to the stadium, another drive to make money even when the club isn’t playing home matches.

The Lewis family’s intentions are anyone’s guess, but the Spurs trust has an asset that’s worth keeping. Or selling. Fans would just like to see some silverware.

Threat of financial calamity removed from Baggies

West Bromwich Albion had effectively been in decline ever since the club was sold to a Chinese consortium in August 2016, paying a figure north of £200m to buy former owner Jeremy Peace’s stake. Controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai’s ownership was fairly disastrous for the club, but his unloved tenure finally came to an end after Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father Dr Kiran Patel, acquired an 87.8% shareholding in West Bromwich Albion Group Limited, the parent company of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. This change in ownership was urgently required, due to the numerous financial problems facing West Brom, including growing high-interest debt and serious cash flow concerns, following years of no investment from the former owner. Indeed, West Brom’s auditors had already rung the alarm bell in the 2021/22 accounts when they cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern without making player s

Gold standard ground boosts Tottenham's income

The gold standard in European football grounds is the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London, a £1bn construction project completed in 2019. Its impact on the club’s finances has become increasingly clear as the effects of the pandemic have faded. Previously, the average fan would spend less than £2 inside the ground on a typical match day, but now that figure is about £16, thanks to new facilities including the longest bar in Europe and an on-site microbrewery. Capacity has gone up from 36,000 at the club’s previous home of White Hart Lane to 62,000. The new stadium — built on land adjacent to White Hart Lane — has opened the door to a broad range of other events that have helped to push commercial income up from €117mn in 2018 to €215mn in 2022. Last year, Tottenham hosted US singer Beyoncé for five nights on her global Renaissance tour, two NFL matches, as well as rugby games and heavyweight boxing bouts. Money brought in from football has gone up too. Match day income is

Spurs to sell minority stake

Tottenham Hotspur is in talks to sell a minority stake in a deal that could value it at up to £3.75 billion and pave the way for Joe Lewis and his family to sever ties with the Premier League football club. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is seeking an investment that values the club at between £3.5 billion and £3.75 billion, including debt. While the terms of any deal have not been finalised, City sources expect Spurs to sell about 10 per cent. The club is being advised by bankers from Rothschild on the sale. Tottenham wants to raise fresh capital for new player signings and to help fund the development of an academy for its women’s team, as well as a 30-storey hotel next to its north London stadium. The financier Amanda Staveley, who brokered the deal for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to take over Newcastle United, is understood to be among the parties to have expressed an interest in Tottenham. Staveley’s fund, PCP Capital Partners, has raised about £500 million to depl

The Political Economy of Football V2

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