Irrespective of the circumstances, each membership has a fall man, and few are as well-known as Daniel Levy. Irrespective of the affiliation, each fan appeared to have an opinion of the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, who left the function on Thursday after 24 years on the helm, and in truth, the evaluation was hardly ever a glowing one. For a lot of of these 24 years, Levy was the face of what Spurs had not achieved – one EFL Cup, a UEFA Europa League title, and one journey to the UEFA Champions League last in twenty years really feel like fairly paltry returns, relying on who you ask. As Levy exits Tottenham, although, he leaves behind a fancy legacy, one sophisticated by the truth that there was truly so much that went proper throughout his stint on the membership.
Levy, the longest-serving membership chairman within the Premier League, may primarily be remembered for his longevity, the kind of endurance that made his exit a real shock. His prolonged spell in control of Spurs, although, is as clear a snapshot of any of the membership’s surprising journey during the last twenty years.
Lengthy earlier than Spurs’ trophy cupboard was a standard matter of social media dialogue, Levy took over because the membership’s govt chairman in February 2001 after shopping for British enterprise magnate Alan Sugar’s 27% stake within the membership. Speak of trophies was aspirational, to place it mildly, on the time Levy took cost – Tottenham might have been one of many “huge 5” golf equipment that facilitated the breakaway from the Soccer League to create the Premier League, however status didn’t precisely comply with for the North London membership. That they had not completed increased than seventh for the reason that Premier League’s inaugural season in 1992-93, at instances nearer to the relegation zone with a Fifteenth-place end the next season than the title chase.
Success was not instantaneous, however inside just a few years, Spurs’ upward trajectory grew to become clear for all to see. Tottenham managed a fifth-place end within the 2005-06 season thanks partially to a career-best 16-goal marketing campaign from Robbie Keane, even when issues unraveled with a case of meals poisoning that impacted the crew forward of a vital sport towards West Ham United with fourth place on the road. Their participation within the UEFA Cup (now referred to as the Europa League) the next season, although, is the place Levy’s crowning achievement lies – Spurs performed in European competitors in 18 of the final 20 seasons, a streak that was beforehand unfamiliar to the crew.
It was a marker of Tottenham’s consistency underneath Levy, the membership changing into more and more expert at lining up proficient gamers like Dimitar Berbatov and Gareth Bale. Every of them might have departed the membership for better photographs at silverware, although their new golf equipment despatched sizable switch charges in trade. Levy’s Spurs have since been caught within the purgatory of being a cuspy membership, one which appears like an everyday darkish horse contender for silverware however is persistently reminded of its second-tier standing within the sport’s meals chain. That doesn’t imply Levy’s most recognizable technique was not an efficient one – for almost all, sports activities will not be truly an train in successful titles, for the reason that activity of breaking into the elites is simpler mentioned than performed. In soccer phrases, most golf equipment are “promoting golf equipment,” and there may be an argument to be made that Levy’s Spurs have been the cream of the crop. Even because the likes of Luka Modric and Kyle Walker left, Tottenham recruited properly sufficient that sustaining their spot in European competitors was virtually a given. They might have lucked out on academy product Harry Kane, however gamers like Son Heung-min, Toby Alderweireld and Christian Eriksen left their very own mark, particularly in order staples of Mauricio Pochettino’s 2018-19 crew that went all the best way to the Champions League last.
Levy’s most seen legacy, although, will truly be the 62,000-seater Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The venue completely encapsulates Spurs’ rise, the membership now profitable sufficient to warrant a state-of-the-art stadium that commonly brings in income from NFL games and concert events in its secondary tasks. By the point the brand new stadium opened in 2019, a rarely-seen trajectory was full – Spurs had climbed out of midtable mediocrity to turn out to be one of many sport’s most recognizable golf equipment, all with out the money injection of a nation state or a businessperson with remarkably deep pockets. Levy managed that unimaginable feat and not using a blueprint to comply with and through a interval the place huge cash was flooding the game, at instances lifting Spurs’ major opponents to unprecedented heights.
In impact, Levy constructed a membership that was too huge for one particular person to run.
If there was clamor that Spurs’ stability sheet seemed too good earlier than the run to the Champions League last, the noise reached a fever pitch after the actual fact. Tottenham’s squad has virtually paled compared to Pochettino’s model of the crew, which completed within the Premier League’s high three for 3 of the 5 full seasons he was on the helm. Opposite to standard perception, that isn’t truly right down to Levy’s lack of curiosity in spending on new signings – Tottenham haven’t turned a revenue within the switch market within the final 5 years, working a web spend deficit of round $760 million within the final 5 years, the fourth-highest within the league. The highest eight gamers on the checklist of their document signings joined the membership after the run to the Champions League last, together with new chart-topper Xavi Simons.
How properly the membership has spent on new signings, although, is a completely totally different story. Golf equipment can not perform as a one-person operation, not to mention the richest and most profitable ones. The calls for of constructing the stadium might have stored Levy away from the switch market to the purpose that Spurs signed no gamers in the summertime of 2018, however he was not the one one pulling the strings at Spurs in his last days on the membership. That mentioned, it took too lengthy for a contemporary construction to happen. Sporting administrators have come and gone however held various ranges of affect alongside the best way, issues solely seeming to take a shift with the 2021 rent of Fabio Paratici and the 2023 recruitment of Johan Lange, who took the function after Paratici obtained a 30-month ban for an accounting scandal throughout his time at Juventus. It means Spurs are nonetheless enjoying catch-up with golf equipment like Liverpool and Manchester Metropolis, who’ve had strong sporting departments for a number of years, and won’t be able to maintain tempo till they enhance their participant recruitment technique.
It was not the one suspect choice Levy made in his last years on the membership, although he’s sadly removed from the one one on this class. Tottenham are considered one of a number of English golf equipment who’ve refused to take a position additional within the girls’s sport, even though the Lionesses’ back-to-back European Championships have fueled an plain rise in recognition for the game. Barcelona‘s trajectory from changing into knowledgeable crew in 2015 to changing into the UEFA Girls’s Champions League winners in 2021 needs to be a sign to Europe’s energy gamers that breaking into the higher echelons of the ladies’s sport is greater than possible. There could also be indicators of optimism for Spurs’ girls’s crew, although – new CEO Vinai Venkatesham was an advocate for Arsenal‘s girls’s crew throughout his time on the membership, the fruits of that labor paying off with their 2025 UWCL triumph.
Any truthful criticism of Levy is rooted in the truth that the job of working Tottenham was too huge for one particular person, a number of essential duties falling to the wayside in his last years on the membership. It means his reported removal by Spurs’ majority shareholders was maybe a deserved one, if a daring one, as a result of Levy felt like a everlasting fixture on the membership. It could be no session to him at this juncture, however his failures are literally an indication of a job properly performed. Levy is probably the one govt of his sort within the sport to have single-handedly remodeled a membership and not using a clean examine from possession, which is probably essentially the most not possible of duties in a brand new age of commercialization within the sport.
