Time to sell a stake at Spurs?

As Daniel Levy prepares for his 24th full season at the helm of Tottenham, fans will naturally start to wonder where this season will take them. Will the positive mood of last season hold? Will there finally be a trophy to vindicate the steady building of the whole Levy era? Off the pitch, will the club receive some much-needed external investment? Ultimately, will this be the year that anything changes, or will Spurs fans be having the same conversations again in the summer of 2025?

It will be clear soon enough whether Spurs have the players they need for this season. On September 26, their eight-game Europa League group-stage campaign will begin. From that point on, the Spurs squad will be stretched further than they were in last year’s 41-game season.

Last season — at least until the very end — was a strikingly positive one at Spurs. If 2022-23 was marked by fans’ anger at Levy as the season unravelled, then 2023-24 was all about collective enthusiasm for the Postecoglou era and his style of play. A lot of the public anger about the direction of the club was neutralised by the appointment of a manager who was in tune with the club’s traditions and the expectations of the fans.

Whatever the ups and downs of the football season, there is another set of questions for Tottenham and Levy over the next 12 months. And that concerns the future shareholding of the club. (At present, ENIC owns 86.58 per cent of the club, and 70.12 per cent of ENIC’s share capital is owned by “a discretionary trust of which certain members of Mr (Joe) Lewis’s family are potential beneficiaries”, according to the club’s website. The rest is owned by discretionary trusts of which “Mr D Levy and certain members of his family are potential beneficiaries”.)

Speculation about a sale is nothing new. It has been there in the background almost since the moment that ENIC bought Alan Sugar’s stake in 2000. Back then, the club was valued at £80m. Now, after almost a quarter-century of Levy’s stewardship, it is valued at £4billion ($5bn), or 50 times that initial valuation. It has arguably the best training ground in the country and the best modern stadium too, one that is integral to the club’s self-sustaining business model.

The news last week that Haringey Council have lifted the cap on major non-football events the stadium can hold, from 16 per year to 30, will allow them to host more concerts by the likes of Beyonce and Lady Gaga in future, making millions of pounds for the club in the process. The stadium, the London location, the international brand, and the global clout of the Premier League all make this an attractive package.

There is very little prospect of a full sale any time soon, and no real likelihood of the ENIC era coming to an end. What is on the cards, however, is the sale of a stake in the club. Tottenham have been frank about their openness to new investment.

If they could sell, for example, a 10 per cent stake in the club for £400m it would be a serious equity injection for Tottenham while not necessarily disrupting the operations of the club. The question is finding the right person to take the other side of that deal.

So far this summer, there has been plenty of speculation about Amanda Staveley potentially becoming a minority partner at Tottenham after her departure from Newcastle United. Ger search for new projects could involve buying a stake in another team. Tottenham have been linked. But whether Tottenham would want such a high-profile minority partner, given how quietly and discreetly they try to run things, is another matter.

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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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