Yesterday, Barcelona FC announced they had made arrangements to reschedule €525million worth of debt – but this is only some of the money owed – the true total is over €1000 million. The club’s economic vice president, Eduard Romeu, confessed to Barca’s General Assembly that this rather worrying sum was not all the result of COVID-19, which in itself is food for thought. It appears that many top-flight sides have been forced to overexpose themselves, and the pandemic has simply tipped the scales to a notch or two too far.
Now The Times (£) reveals that Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, and Chelsea — remain co-owners and shareholders of an ESL holding company in Spain with clubs from Spain, France, and Italy.
Recently, Tottenham reshuffled their own mountainous debts, turning short-term debt into long-term debt.
What does the future hold? I wish I were able to tell you. What we do know, is that Spurs have it all to do to get themselves out of their own personal mess, which appears to be the trend across Europe.
Bloomberg recently published this graphic which shows what might be motivating the Super League sides.
Modern football looks entirely unsustainable, and the path out of COVID-19 is far from an uncluttered one.
ENIC is not just THFC. They own large portions of shares in retail, real estate, sport, software, gambling, entertainment.
I understand that ENIC does not constitute all of Tavistock, but it constitutes the Lion’s share. As of 2007, it was 85%. Tavistock has a portfolio of well over 5B. Lewis has sold shares slowly but steadily over the last 15 years (primarily to Levy in ENIC shares).
If ENIC owns 85% of Tavistock, and Levy owns 30% of ENIC …
Well, that is primarily from where that estimated net worth is pulled.
Fair enougb
I absolutely agree with you in principle. I have said much the same that Levy has been taking the proverbial for years and has continued to treat the Spurs fans with complete contempt by rinsing them at every opportunity. I only disagree with your calculations of what Levy’s Enic’s shares are worth. If you value the club at £2 bill before debt, Levy as a 29% shareholder is worth £300 mill. Furthermore, some observers have estimated that he went over double the original budget for the new stadium. Otherwise, you have hit the nail on the head and the man has absolutely no shame.
I like the new Wembley, and yes I am old enough to have been to the old one – it was a sh1thole.
Embrace change!
Oh, yes. UEFA will fight it tooth and nail. They do not want to yield their governing power over European play. They will get ugly over it.
UEFA have already come out against the ESL. In fact, PSG stated that their respect for UEFA and it’s secretary general was one of the main reasons they didn’t join.
Now UEFA and FIFA ? They have a bit of leverage… although someone would have to educate me as to why FIFA feels they have very much skin in that game.
That was not written either in support of or against a Super League.
It waa written to point out the folly of thinking that the FA or PL has any leverage over what happens. Their present sanctions in place are a joke.
“I hope … Levy does not turn out to be a greedy bottom dwelling parasite… ”
Wow.
That is like hoping that all of the feces in the streets of Mumbai suddenly turns to rice instead of maggots.
Just a quick picture:
Levy has a net worth of just under 1.2 BILLION Sterling in ENIC shares alone.
Just a remedial review, that is a MILLION … multiplied by 1,200.
Levy has paid himself between 3 and 4 million per season out of club money for years now. One could easily and conservatively estimate the amount he has taken out of the club for his personal use over the last 20 years to be upwards of 30 million or possibly even 40 million Sterling. Unknown how well he paid himself in the first years.
In paying himself between 3 and 4 million Sterling per year out of club finances, Levy has been often the Top paid chairman in the league, and at least one of the Top 2, for years now.
Further, Levy paid himself at least a 3 million bonus on top of that salary – again from club funds – for Finishing a stadium at least 7 months late, at close to a QUARTER BILLION over budget.
This man of unbelievable wealth … paid himself a huge bonus on top of being paid as the Top salaried chairman in the league … for putting the club an extra 250 million in debt due to budget errors … and finishing many months late in doing it … for a stadium that many Spurs fans did not feel was in the best interest of the Club in the first place.
He has personally taken all of this unneeded money out of the club … to deliver a pitch product that has won 1 very minor trophy over a 20 year span.
I do not know if anyone can draw a better picture of a parasite.
The other European clubs, particularly the Spanish have overspent on transfers and wages, probably breaking FFP in the process in an effort to win trophies and to remain top of the pile. Levy spent the £360 mill earned by the club’s football success on building the new stadium and also wracking up debt of approximately £650 mill on the club’s balance sheet. I suppose it depends where your priorities lie, although you could argue that all of them now have unstainable debts. PSG didn’t join the ESL as they have more than enough money and neither did Bayern Munich who are are properly run football club.
So since you know what is the Spurs problem, why are all the other successful clubs mired in debt?
How can you state that kind of fact. You should be bashing Levy to pieces. Anyway, backing the manager, famous catch phrase here, does not seem to make these behemoth of clubs and their haul of trophies any safer than say, Spurs who invested in a structure pre Covid. My question would, why are all these clubs in so much debt when you consider the income for being perennial winners. Always qualify for CL. TV rights. Merchandise etc? I heard Spurs are poorly run, so what am I missing.
I honestly feel that breaking with the structure of football as it is will be too damaging to any credibility and therefore marketability.. Football without jeopardy? Is it even a sport anymore?
The only way to actually make it ‘sustainable’ (hate millennial words like that). Is too look at player, agent wages and transfer fees (less so).
Surely eventually the Super League becomes similarly unsustainable if the sky’s the limit? Forever… 🤔
“PL Authorities”…
There is no authority if multiple teams choose to leave the league. To whom does a club pay a fine ? Some PL geek who comes knocking at the door with a frown and with the hand out ? Docking points from clubs that no longer belong to the league ? OH NO ! The horror!
“and Levy does not turn out to be a greedy bottom dwelling parasite…”
Not much chance of that I’m afraid
Resilient club? So the club is resilient in the face of the humongous debt you’ve racked up running it? That’s nice to know innit…
Absolutely.
Who are all these plebs? Anonymous plebs with Stockholm syndrome.
Correction, London HAD Wembley, a once world renowned, iconic, football stadium! Now it has a cheap, nondescript-looking, substitute. Purely on aesthetics our stadium is light years ahead of the architectural abortion that was criminally allowed to replace the old Wembley.
The ESL is likely to return, unfortunately, and will in due course devalue the premiership and, even further, the domestic cup competitions. I have absolutely no sympathy for these big clubs and their self induced financial plight. It’s doubtful if any other activity in the history of the planet has ever been awash with so so much easy money and to get in such debt as some of these clubs have is nothing short of ridiculous and scandalous.
So all the so called apologies by the UK football clubs who were going to participate in the ESL were just token gestures and they are are still committed to it. If this is allowed to take place, it will be the death knell of football, certainly in Britain, as we know it. I hope the PL authorities are looking into this Spanish company. How long will the fans be interested into watching a football cabal with the same teams in the competition every season, regardless of results or form? It is ironic that the one club without any pretensions to being a proper football club or winning anything, is invited to dine at the top table. I still feel on balance that it will fail to get off the ground, but the sheer two faced hypocrisy of the owners is unforgiveable.
Forgive me for stating the obvious but the reason clubs are finding this unsustainable is that they are paying their players too much at the highest table.
If the ESL goes ahead they will blow the extra money on transfer fees, players wages, etc, I mean, its not like they have been paid peanuts by the TV companies upto now.
ENIC FC are a special case, they have blown it all on a stadium but at least its a fixed asset that will retain its value (hopefully).
And some people are FOR this apparently….🐐
Its all coming down, they’re crashing the system. Football clubs, the lower ones especially, will be victims of this community smash up. The farce continues with Billy Gilmour missing Scots vital final group game after a “positive” test. 1/50000 says there’s nothing wrong with him. Qatar say nobody can go to the world cup without being jabbed up(who wants to go to that sh$t show anyhow??) Wembley and English grounds still empty but the toffs were all maskless and undistanced at Ascot and Wimbledon will be capacity cos, you know….the royals like it. Terrific stuff in Budapest again, I can’t imagine the cognitive dissonance that people who believe they could die at any minute or infect someone else if they don’t adhere to the rules when theyre sitting at home watching the matches in Hungary. Full house, jumping and singing all together….half naked even. No bother. Despite the underhand smearing of their PM by the media, he’s clearly not buying what the CDC, WHO and Davos are selling. Nice one chief. I salute you.
London doesn’t need another Wembley, it has Wembley….a 400m football stadium would have been just fine…….
It’s looking increasingly like the new stadium couldn’t have come at a worse time. We should have learnt from Arsenal’s experience with their new stadium and avoided it like the plague. Instead revamping and increasing the size of the old WHL would have made so much more sense in footballing terms and we’d be in a much better position financially now. Of course Levy isn’t interested in “footballing terms”, to him and enic football is just a by-product of their money making machine. Rather the new stadium prioritised so many other things over football. All of which were designed to rake in the cash on an industrial scale, very little of which would be recycled to benefit the squad. We’ve been duped. However because of the pandemic Levy has managed to shoot himself squarely in the foot instead.
“Meanwhile in Gotham City, the Penguin and his board of Jokers look to hunt down the Riddler…….maybe he has the answers they are all looking for”……….
It could be argued that it looks like the bigger clubs have over-exposed themselves and might go bust.
Bo hoo (I would be upset if such a fate befell Spurs – not so much the other clubs).
They may try to form an ESL again, but it will be shot down in flames by fans, media (and importantly for the UK – UK politicians)… unless the framework is substantially reworked so that clubs in the ESL deserve to be there by their footballing prowess (and not just their merchandising, beer selling and football stadium building ability).
Even if a small number of clubs form a Kerry Packereque breakaway league… once people see those clubs are playing in their own little navel gazing universe and that top players leave to join clubs that can enter bonafide competitions… the sponsors will leave faster than a toupee in a hurricane.
I hope Arsenal, Chelsea, United, Liverpool and Citeh relaunch the ESL and Levy does not turn out to be a greedy bottom dwelling parasite… but…