Strange club, Tottenham, but a win is a win and on Thursday they had two. A double, if you fancy triggering older fans with other memories of the term.
We can return to the merits of scratching past Hoffenheim in Europe, but first let’s rewind to a few hours earlier, before their slog against the 15th-ranked team in Germany. That takes us to the morning and the publication of Deloitte’s Money League report, showing how the bean counters at our various clubs are getting on.
Now, those are happier league tables for Spurs, because they have beans stacked as high as the eye can see. Big beans for big boys, and by revenue they are the ninth biggest boy in the footballing world. Fifth biggest in the Premier League.
It’s all there in the bars of a chart – Tottenham’s earnings for the 2023-24 season amounted to £519.5million, not factoring in their transfer dealings, and that is a roaring trade. For accounts drawn one year on from their last appearance in the Champions League, in 22-23, the numbers are sublime, actually.
So, happy shareholders, happy life; the flick, the trick, the graphs that make Daniel Levy tick.
The peculiarities of his reign are no secret by now, not after 24 years, but they are always worth a re-examination when fresh numbers come in, as they did on Thursday. I’m thinking specifically about the wages as a percentage of turnover, which sounds dry. And it is. But it’s the metric that tells us if a club is willing to live a little or too much.
Tottenham are spending a paltry amount on wages as a percentage of their revenue compared to their rivals
They could bring in three big-name stars on £250,000 per week and still not be spending half of their revenue on wages
Why bring in a full-throttle manager like Ange Postecoglou if you will not back him with a sufficient squad?
In Tottenham’s case, the spend on wages in 2024 was 42 per cent of revenue, so around £218m, and the figure requires some context through comparison. That being both a comparison to their own behaviours, showing this to be Spurs’s lowest commitment by percentage in the past five seasons, and a comparison to their competition.
Going in order of the revenues with which Deloitte ranked the nine British clubs in the world’s top 20, Manchester City spent 57 per cent of their £706.8m turnover on wages (£403.4m), and they might be seen as our standard bearer, pending the outcome of deeper enquiries.
Next up is Manchester United, who operated at 56 per cent (£364m on wages), pursued by Arsenal at 53 per cent (£320m) and Liverpool at 63 per cent (£380m). Then it was Spurs, followed by Chelsea (72 per cent, £331.7m), Newcastle (68 per cent, £213m), West Ham (58 per cent, £157m), and Aston Villa (96 per cent, £251m).
We might look at one of the two outliers in that sample, which is Villa, who gambled 90 per cent or more of their turnover on wages in three of the past five seasons. It contributed to a place in the Champions League, so they are probably cool with their lot, but the fact Douglas Luiz now plays for Juventus tells of their proximity to cliff edge. Just as United demonstrated that £364m can be easily wasted.
Those figures highlight an inexactness in the art, but they also offer a guideline for where the richer clubs draw their lines. How they quantify ambition. And when we look at it that way, Levy’s beans suddenly don’t appear very big at all.
They are the beans of a man who has committed upwards of 47 per cent on wages just once in the past five seasons. They are the beans of a man who isn’t even remotely close to the middle ground between extreme caution and recklessness. The beans of an executive who could sign three high-tier players on £250,000 a week, £39m a year combined, and still be within 50 per cent of turnover. Levy should be embarrassed by those beans. They are the beans of institutional cowardice.
And isn’t that horribly out of place at a club that markets itself on daring and doing?
It’s a club that appointed a cavalier in Ange Postecoglou, but left him relying on five teenagers to see out the game against Hoffenheim on Thursday. A club that went into the tie four players short of a full bench, with a cast of exhausted men on the pitch, and is yet to sign a senior outfielder in the January market.
As a comparison, Aston Villa are spending 96 per cent of their revenue on players’ wages
Spurs face an injury crisis but still haven’t been backed in the transfer market this January
I admire Postecoglou, I find him exciting and different, which isn’t the same as believing there is vast wisdom in his method.
There is also a question to be asked about the sense in appointing a manager with a high-intensity style, with all the burnout issues we have gone on to see, when you aren’t prepared to supply him with a squad able to satisfy demands.
But Postecoglou has big beans and we can all agree on that. He is striving, being bold, and his exasperation is growing by the week. On Friday, ahead of Sunday’s game of dire need against Leicester, he said Tottenham would be ‘playing with fire’ if reinforcements don’t arrive in the next week.
But is Levy even listening? Does he pay any notice to those social media posts flagging that his previous three managers sat first in Italy, second in Turkey and third in the Premier League going into this weekend? Were they all solely the problem? Was Antonio Conte a mile off-beam with his moaning?
If we are to give Levy his due, beyond the magnificence of the stadium, it is that he has splashed plenty on transfers in the past few seasons and he has kept the club safe from the PSR buzzards.
But wages, not fees, are the key to landing the best players and to date only Levy’s salary, which has fluctuated between £3.5m and 6.5m of late, would rank as best in class for the division.
Going above his ceiling of £200,000 a week to change Tottenham’s narrative? Good luck to Postecoglou if he is privately nudging in that direction, even if these latest figures prove, yet again, the club is operating a mile within itself.
And that’s a shambles, really. A stain. A contradiction of what Levy says in public about feeling the same heartbeat as Tottenham’s fans. They are words he has used since day one, as contained in his very first set of programme notes, in March 2001.
Does Levy even notice Postecoglou’s protestations that Spurs are ‘playing with fire’ by not signing anybody?
Levy contradicts himself about feeling the same heartbeat as Spurs fans – his focus is squarely on profit
Though Spurs have spent on transfers in recent seasons, fans have long been frustrated with tight purse strings
I dug them out this week, and he talks about being a supporter on the West Stand at White Hart Lane, of wearing rosettes and idolising Gazza and Lineker. That kind of tone.
But there’s also a bit on spending, as it happened, and naturally that is what catches the eye now.
‘Sir Alan (Sugar) faced the same challenges we do now balancing the needs of shareholders, who want profit, with those of the fans, who want success on the pitch,’ he wrote. ‘Sometimes, the two do not go together. It is a balancing act.’
With each set of accounts, it becomes clearer that only one side of the line ever mattered. Postecoglou should pour himself a double.
Ratcliffe burns bridges on the water
In the latest instalment of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s adventures in sport, he has had a total breakdown in his relationship with Sir Ben Ainslie and decided he can win the America’s Cup without him.
That being Ainslie, four-time Olympic champion, winner of the 2013 Cup for the US, and a man who recently delivered a British yacht to the final for the first time since 1964.
There’s a lot to be said for confidence and even more for those who recognise when the other guy in the room is smarter in their field.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has ditched Sir Ben Ainslie ahead of the America’s Cup, deciding he can win it without him
RFU chief Bill Sweeney refused to apologise for his salary and bonus amid the organisation’s financial plight
So good luck to Manchester United as those rocks get closer, but at least they have Captain Jim at the helm.
Sweeney digs his heels in
Bill Sweeney, the Rugby Football Union chief executive, refused to apologise this week for accepting a £358,000 bonus and £1.1million salary at a time of record losses and redundancies at Twickenham.
With that much brass in his neck, he would surely be of more use on the pitch than off it.
