Stefan Borson suggests how much influence Daniel Levy will now have at Tottenham with a 25% stake
Daniel Levy wouldn’t have quit Tottenham unless there was a dispute behind the scenes with the ownership group.
Tottenham confirmed Levy has stepped down as the club’s executive chairman on Thursday (4 September) after spending 24 years in the role, with Peter Charrington appointed non-executive chairman.
Spurs insisted there will be no changes to the ownership of the club, while Levy will remain part of ENIC, which owns an 86.91 per cent stake at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Levy and members of his family own a 29.88 per cent stake in ENIC, with Joe Lewis’s family trust holding the remaining 70.12 per cent.
Alongside Charrington, Vinai Venkatesham will now steer the ship after he was appointed as the club’s CEO in April.
Tottenham owners facing ‘significant’ issues
This article contains exclusive comment from Stefan Borson, a former financial adviser to Man City.
Football Insider revealed on Friday (5 September) Amanda Staveley has been in talks about a Tottenham takeover.
The former Newcastle United chief is believed to have been spearheading a consortium from the Middle East, while an American group is also interested in Spurs.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson said: “I don’t think it’s a case of sort of consensual stepping down, moving away, everything’s smiley and happy.
“I mean, I think it’s a clear sign of quite significant issues within the ownership group. I don’t think there’s any possibility that he would have gone by his choice without there being effectively some kind of dispute.
“He’s a very significant shareholder indirectly of Tottenham Hotspur and he’s run the thing for 25 years. It’s going to be quite some wrench to step aside and allow both somebody else to run it completely and for him to have no influence whatsoever.
“So, there’s not a case where he’s becoming non-executive chairman. It might be worth just touching on some of that terminology for people, but there’s a situation where he’s leaving completely and his interest appears to be only now in respect of his ENIC shares and the way that he holds his interest in Tottenham is indirectly through ENIC.
“So, he’s got about 30 per cent of ENIC. ENIC is a very old multi-club organisation, doesn’t own the other clubs anymore, but it was one of the first multi-club owners, really 25-30 years ago. It used to own Rangers and various other clubs or shares of them.
“So, now he has this 30 per cent holding of ENIC. ENIC then owns 86 per cent of Tottenham, so his indirect holdings is about 25 per cent of Tottenham.
“But what that means is that his actual influence and his ability to influence at either the ENIC level or the Spurs level is pretty minimal now.
“I mean, he’s just a shareholder of the holding company.”
Daniel Levy has boosted Tottenham’s finances
While Levy has been a controversial figure among Tottenham fans, he leaves the club in a strong financial position following his departure.
Spurs’ latest published accounts for 2023-24 revealed their turnover fell from £549.6million in 2022-23 to £528.2million, but their commercial revenue increased from £227.7million to £255.2million across the same period.
In terms of matters on the pitch, Thomas Frank has picked up six points from his opening three Premier League matches in charge of the club, having replaced Ange Postecoglou in June.
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