Cock on Ball

Money matters

by Dave

Everyone seems to have their favourite theory on why we’re currently looking up at the rest of the table, but one of the more popular points of view is that we are “a club obsessed with money”. Even our own kind has been at it, with Bernie Kingsley of the Tottenham Supporters’ Trust claiming “Football has become obsessed with money, and Tottenham are an arch example of that”.

Levy in particular seems to be the focus of this accusation, and the fact that we’re sitting on a Ł10m profit at the end of one of the highest spending summers ever would seem to support the premise. But is this fixation on profit merely a false perception based on the final figures? Or worse, are those making the accusation distorting the facts according to their own agenda?

The main reason behind our profits this summer were the sales of Keane and Berbatov and when you look at the amount of money they brought in – and then look at the adverse affect it has had on our performance so far this season – it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that Levy has put the club’s finances ahead of the club’s success. However, we know this isn’t the full story. We’re told the club did everything they could to hang onto Berbatov: from refusing him a move last summer and last January to delaying his move to Man U until the last possible moment in the hope that we might be able to persuade him to stay. Yes, we did squeeze every penny out of Man U, but my impression was that Levy did this almost out of spite for Fergie. Had the likes of Madrid or Barcelona come in for him as was touted, he may well have ended up moving for considerably less.

As for Keane, we in no way looked to sell him, as some pundits have been suggesting. Even the phrase “we let him leave”, while true to an extent, doesn’t really tell the whole story. Keane was at the heart of the team for a while, so much so that we decided to sell Defoe (a great player) almost as a statement of our commitment to Robbie. They couldn’t play together - a fact much publicised – and we chose Keane. So to position his sale as financially motivated is cynical in the extreme, in fact I believe the opposite to be true. Keane’s sale was a rare example of compassion in the modern game. Keeping him would have been to our advantage in almost every respect, yet we agreed to let him go so that he could play for the team he had always supported. Again, we ensured we were sufficiently compensated for our loss, but as in the case of Berbatov, I firmly believe our preference would have been to have kept the player.

Keane and Berbatov aside, I think there probably are a few examples of players we have brought in with an eye on the potential profits. Under Levy we seem to have signed an endless stream of players being labelled “the next [insert one of the world’s greatest players here]” and most seem to have quietly disappeared. Mounir El Hamdaoui, Adel Taraabt and Kevin Prince Boateng were all seen as investments in my opinion, and I’m certain the opportunity to pick up Barcelona’s wunderkind Giovani Dos Santos for less than Ł5m must have got the dollar signs spinning in the eyes of our chairman.

But that’s fair enough in my view. Football is a business (so the cliché goes), and if a player can come in, help you make progress and then be sold for a profit, I see nothing wrong with that equation in theory. “Doing a Leeds” has now become a commonly used euphemism for spending without considering the consequences, and with teams like West Ham and Newcastle desperately trying to balance the books, I don’t think Levy can be faulted for keeping the club’s finances near the top of his priorities. I say “near the top”, as I still believe our success is his main priority, and the fortune spent on players like Bent, Modric and Bentley, were surely less about investment and profit, and more about building a football side which can be competitive.

So where is idea that Levy is only motivated by cash coming from? Well, first of all let’s get the awkward and often hinted suggestion of anti-Semitism out the way. Daniel Levy is Jewish, and as is often the case, the suggestion that a Jew is motivated by money doesn’t sit comfortably in certain quarters. It’s understandable that the association makes some people uncomfortable, and while it would be ridiculous and a bad case of ‘political correctness gone mad’ to dismiss any comment of this nature as anti-Semitic, I think some areas of the media have let the faintest suggestion of it creep into their analysis. Whether it’s to provoke a reaction I could not say, but I’ve heard more than one reference to how “clever” Levy is with money, and I have to admit that it’s a phrase that rings alarm bells for me.

That’s just a small element of the issue though, and undeserving of more than a mention. The truth is nothing makes a better headline in football-land than “CRISIS”, and as a team that promised so much but are now rock bottom of the table, we are of course the most obvious target. And it’s deserved - we are quite rightly the laughing stock of the league, and if you can’t understand why, simply imagine a team like West Ham doing what we’ve done, and the smile that has just appeared on your face should give you the answer.

The money thing is just a red herring though, or at least, the short term financial dealings that the likes of Bernie Kingsley have accused us of, are not the issue. Our real problem is impatience. Impatience to get into the Champions League, impatience to become one of the elite, and impatience to achieve Levy’s ultimate goal…

Yes, I’m aware that this pretty much undermines everything I’ve said, but I believe Levy is in fact motivated by money after all, but not the short term (and comparatively low) profit that comes from wheeling and dealing players. Levy’s holding out for the big one. If he can get Spurs into the Champions League, and make them genuine contenders for the title, then suddenly we become a team that he can sell for hundreds of millions more than right now. Currently we’re valued at around Ł400m, so it’s clear that even spending Ł16m on the likes of Modric and Bentley is peanuts when you consider the bigger picture.

But unlike the scenario the media paint, whereby Levy is sacrificing success for profit, this is an ultimate goal that can only be realised if we achieve the very highest level of success. In a sense it’s what we all want, but like Levy, we have to be patient. We have already set ourselves back a long way by refusing to see Jol’s temporary lack of progress as anything more than a blip, and now Ramos has undone much of the good work that Jol did by selling all but one or two of his team. Having done that, let’s not set ourselves back even further by not letting Ramos finish what he has started. Despite his impatience Levy has pulled off a coup by getting Ramos, and has brought in some genuine quality this summer. Not only that, but thanks to their astute financial workings we’re still in a position to strengthen the squad further in January. The problem is not greed (everyone in football is hungry for glory), but we need to accept that nobody, not even the likes of Roman Abramovich can instantly catapult a team to the very top.

A series of knee jerk reactions has found us in the position we are currently in, and the way out is not more knee jerk reactions. It’s quite the opposite in fact. But, if we can combine our strong financial position and financially sound management with a realistic approach to long term success, then surely we have the ingredients for the kind of team that Levy and the fans alike would want.

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