After 24 years in charge of our great club it is logical we ask ourselves what has Daniel Levy achieved at Tottenham Hotspur and what will his legacy be? Of course as soon as we talk about this, many will likely jump to the same answer and I guess it’s difficult not to as we now boast a 60,000 plus state of the art stadium, where beers fill from the bottom!
There’s no denying it is a fantastic stadium and we can all see the brand that is being created around it, attracting a global market with its International fan base, world famous music gigs, NFL matches on the world’s first dividing, retractable football pitch, premium boxing events and of course let’s not forget the formula race track.
It seems there are no limits as to where Daniel Levy can take this football club, at least off the pitch. But shouldn’t a chairman of a great football club, one of the richest in the world in fact, be judged on how we succeed on the pitch?
Let’s look at the facts, in 24 years Daniel Levy has achieved one trophy for Spurs. Yes that’s right, I will repeat that just in case you think it is a typo, Daniel Levy has delivered just a single major trophy in his reign as Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur.
If we compare this to the major clubs in the English league, since Daniel Levy’s reign began Liverpool have won 20 trophies, Man Utd and Man City have won 26 trophies respectively, Chelsea and Arsenal both boast 22 trophies. The numbers do not lie, Daniel Levy’s single trophy to his name which was a League cup back in 2008 is pretty grim!
So with that in mind, I ask you again, what will Daniel Levy’s legacy be?
Well in that time the club have appointed 12 full-time managers which means a managers lifespan at Spurs is approximately 2 seasons. Incredibly this is also the average for any top flight manager in the Premier league although it used to be 4 years prior to 2012. We have seen numerous staff come and go during this time from technical directors, head of scouting, academy development and we now have my personal favourite, a managing director sport, currently held by Scott Munn. I have absolutely no idea what this role entails and I wonder if this is part of Tottenham’s evolution to the next level, or whether he has been simply enlisted to form another safety buffer around the impenetrable Daniel Levy. Another fall guy perhaps for Daniel Levy to shrug his shoulders and say, “well, it wasn’t my fault!”.
Despite such a poor record on the pitch over the last 20 years, Daniel Levy is the highest-paid director among the Premier League’s current 20 clubs. Reports suggest Levy was paid £3.581million last year, up from £3.265million the previous year. The Spurs chairman also received a £3 million bonus back in 2019 upon the completion of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, a stadium that was over budget and experienced multiple delays.
When this stadium project was first announced the Spurs fans were reassured that it would have no impact on the team’s development and future transfers would not be affected. Despite these promises Spurs became the first club in Premier League history to not sign anyone since the creation of the summer transfer window. In fact, thanks to Daniel Levy, Tottenham Hotspur has the current record in the Premier League of 512 days without a single signing. That is one record I do not expect any club to beat for quite some time!
It was a record that halted everything Spurs and Mauricio Pochettino had built in those years running up to another season of “almost”, where an unlikely league title was actually in our sights and an incredible champions league run fell short of only 90 minutes.
Since then we have seen further top class managers come and fail with questions being asked not only of these managers but also of Daniel Levy and Enics responsibility. Each time a manager fails we hear calls for “Levy out”! How many times have we seen these calls from the stands? Is this something we would expect to see from a successful club?
We have heard all of the excuses from Daniel Levy over the years and I could list them all for you but at the end of the day that’s exactly what they are, excuses. Every club can give their excuses for challenges they face on and off the pitch but a successful club does not let that distract them from their ultimate goal of winning trophies.
Daniel Levy has earned himself a reputation as one of football’s toughest negotiators and former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson described negotiating with Levy over the transfer of Dimitar Berbatov as “more painful than my hip replacement”.
Unfortunately this reputation has perhaps done Spurs no favours over the years with many clubs and agents unwilling to even entertain Tottnham Hotspur in transfers whilst Daniel Levy remains at the helm. It seems the days are long gone when we can attract world class players like Gazza or Gary Lineker and Jurgen Klinsmann to the club.
For those too young to remember, let me explain those for you. Paul Gascoigne joined Spurs in 1988 and was arguably one of the most exciting players the world had seen since Diego Maradona had set the world alight in Mexico 86 (maybe I’m a little biased). Gary Lineker joined Spurs in 1989 from Barcelona and was the current England no1 forward receiving the Golden Boot in Mexico 86. Jurgen Klinsmann joined Spurs in 1994 and was the no1 forward for Germany lifting the World Cup in 1990. Acquiring these players was not only immensely exciting but they were major statements to the world that Spurs were here to compete with the best!
If you look at how this compares with our more recent signings the gap couldn’t be bigger. When Richarlison joined us in 2022 he was backup striker for a struggling Brazil team, with previous clubs including Everton and Watford. When Dominic Solanke joined us in 2024, his last senior call up for England was back in 2017, with his club form faltering at Chelsea, Liverpool and Bournemouth. It is believed even the appointment of Ange Postecoglou was Tottenham’s 6th choice on their list of potential managers, as Tottenham’s failings under the world’s best managers was evident for everyone to see. This manager role at Spurs has now become a poisoned chalice with only the brave or stupid willing to take on such a position
So where does that leave us?
Before Daniel Levy took over from Alan Sugar in 2001, the previous 20 years had seen us win 5 major trophies including the Uefa cup and FA cup. Whilst those figures are hardly remarkable in comparison to the achievements of the other major clubs in England, that still equates to a major trophy every 4 years. We never really challenged for any league titles during this time but Spurs were always a team that were quite capable of going on a successful cup run with exciting players that included the likes of Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa to name a few!
Under Daniel Levy we now average a single major trophy in over 20 years. Since our distant glory days Spurs have become better known as Spursy. In fact it was Tottenham fans themselves who first coined the phrase Spursy, describing a “brand of skilful but flaky players who could never quite deliver”.
In Levy’s own words, “Over the last two decades we have been in 14 semi-finals, made it to six finals and only won one of them. It must be our hope that we are soon celebrating a trophy win.”
This is Daniel Levy’s legacy.
