Levy out after 25 years as Spurs look for fresh approach

End of era at Tottenham

Former Arsenal executive grows in influence

5 Sep 2025 - The Guardian

David Hytner

Daniel Levy has left his role as the chair of Tottenham, eased aside after almost 25 years in charge and leaving a legacy that is best described as mixed. The Lewis family, who own the club, have put a new leadership team in place with Peter Charrington, who was brought on to the board in March, stepping into a newly created role of nonexecutive chair.

Vinai Venkatesham, who was named as the chief executive in April, will grow further in influence and one of their principal goals will be to attract fresh investment. It is understood that it is essential for Spurs to drive their varied plans to expand the business, which would help in the ultimate ambition of bringing onfield success.

A source close to the Lewis family said: “Generations of the family support this special football club and they want what the fans want – more wins more often. This is why you have seen recent changes, new leadership and a fresh approach. In Vinai, Thomas [Frank, the new manager] and Peter Charrington, they believe they are backing the right team to deliver on this. This is a new era.”

Levy, who took over from Alan Sugar as the chairman in February 2001, has been a magnet for criticism from the fans. They have accused him of putting profit before glory and protensts staged calling for him to quit. They have been frustrated by the lack of silverware on his watch, although the team did win the Europa League last season, adding to the League Cup success of 2008. Levy sacked 13 managers – excluding caretakers – in the pursuit of the winning formula.

Nobody can deny what Levy has built at Spurs, starting with the magnificent new stadium and stateof-the-art training ground. With his sharp commercial acumen, he has established the club among the financial elite. According to Deloitte’s most recent Money League, published for 2023-24, the club were the ninthrichest in world football with an annual turnover of £512m. This was during a season when they did not compete in Europe. And it cannot be overlooked that they have become a much more consistent force in the league, the 17th-placed finish from last season notwithstanding.

Levy led on the decision to sack Ange Postecoglou as manager after the Europa League triumph and replace him with Frank and, around that time, he was looking forward with characteristic passion and enthusiasm to pushing ahead with the club’s non-footballing projects. They include the building of both a hotel and an indoor arena close to the stadium; an expansion of the training ground in Enfield to take in a hub for the women’s team and even a bespoke NFL training facility; and numerous residential developments in the Tottenham area.

The 63-year-old welcomed the appointment of Venkatesham, the former Arsenal chief executive whom he has known for years, as he needed someone to take over the day-to-day running of the business to enable him to give the other projects greater attention. In short, it did not sound as though he was planning to walk away in the early weeks of the new season.

Venkatesham said in a video released by the club in June – in which he gave his thoughts while sitting alongside Levy – that he would take “more of a lead day-to-day on operational matters on the pitch and off the pitch”. In the statement to announce Levy’s departure yesterday, Spurs noted Venkatesham had been hired “as part of its succession planning”. Charrington has links to Joe Lewis, the Bahamasbased billionaire who, for years, was Spurs’ ultimate benefactor, controlling them through his investment company, Enic.

The club’s ownership structure shifted in October 2022 when Lewis stepped back from his publicly stated position. He ceased to be a part of the Lewis Family Trust which controls Spurs, transferring it to unnamed members of his family.

Lewis subsequently endured a well-documented fall from grace. Charged with insider trading in the US on 26 July 2023, the 88-year-old was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $5m (£4m) on 4 April 2024. The Lewis Family Trust owns 70.12% of Enic, the company that holds 86.91% of the shares in Spurs. Levy and members of his family own the other 29.88% of Enic. Lewis has two children, Vivienne and Charles, and the family’s interest at Spurs is being looked after by two trustees.

Charrington, a former chief executive of Citi Private Bank, is a director of Enic.

The backdrop to the seismic change at Spurs is the search for investment. The game has been ablaze with takeover rumours involving the club, with agents and financiers claiming at various points this year that there is a buyer waiting in the wings. It is known that Amanda Staveley, the former Newcastle director who brokered the Saudi takeover at St James’ Park four years ago, has become a figure of influence at Spurs. Could the club find it easier to attract additional money without Levy cutting a divisive presence at the top? The Lewis family remain committed to Spurs’ long-term future.

The club also said in their statement there had been “no changes to the ownership or shareholder structure” in light of the Levy news. Charrington said: “This is a new era of leadership for the club, on and off the pitch. I do recognise there has been a lot of change in recent months as we put in place new foundations for the future.

“We are now fully focused on stability and empowering our talented people across the club, led by Vinai and his executive team.”

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Levy won the financial battles but what about the glory?

He diversified club’s affairs and built a superb stadium but on-pitch performance left fans deeply frustrated

A club is not just a commercial enterprise. At some point the actual football matters

5 Sep 2025 - The Guardian

Jonathan Wilson

If it hadn’t been for the football, Daniel Levy would be regarded as one of the great club executives. He oversaw the construction of what is widely regarded as the best club stadium in England. Tottenham’s training ground is one of the best in Europe. He kept costs low. He has diversified the business, so the club hosts NFL, rugby, boxing, monster trucks and major concerts. He even had the chutzpah to get Tottenham into Super League conversations, despite the fact they haven’t won the league since 1961. Yet over the past year, Levy has faced constant fan protests.

The news he had stepped down yesterday came as a shock, although in retrospect there is perhaps a suggestion that he could feel the end approaching. In February he said “all options are open” in response to fan demands for his resignation. Last month, in a rare extended interview, given to Gary Neville, he remarked: “When I’m not here I’m sure I’ll get the credit,” a suggestion perhaps he was beginning to contemplate his legacy. He is 63 and missed the Uefa Super Cup final to help his daughter settle in at university in the US, perhaps an indication of somebody beginning to reassess their life priorities.

Tottenham, similarly, had begun to restructure. The former Arsenal executive Vinai Venkatesham was appointed as CEO in the summer, and it was announced in March that Peter Charrington, a director of Enic, which owns 86.91% of the club, would be joining the board. Charrington now becomes nonexecutive chair.

To what extent Levy was a willing participant in what looks now like succession planning is unclear, but the suspicion is there has been a conscious desire for a new approach from the Lewis family, which owns Enic, although Levy and his family have a 29.88% stake. That Levy had a financial stake in the club and so an interest in making it as profitable as possible has, along with the fact he was the best-paid Premier League chair, been a constant a bugbear for fans whose focus, understandably, is on the pitch.

It is one of the curses of football’s executive classes that fans still care about trivialities such as winning the trophies and playing the game well, and one of the great ironies of the modern Premier League that before every match at Tottenham a video montage of highlights of the club’s history is played to stirring music and Danny Blanchflower’s dictum that the game is about glory. And then out run a team representing a club with a 42% wages-to-turnover ratio.

To an extent that caution was forced on Levy by circumstance. White Hart Lane had to be upgraded and Levy has done that, while keeping the club in their traditional home. Managing that in London, where land is so scarce and so expensive, is not an achievement to be dismissed. The cost, though, was at least £1bn which, as Arsenal found when they moved to the Emirates, necessarily restricts expenditure in other areas.

Caution in the transfer market, though, allied to rising ticket prices, has led to fan frustration. In Levy’s 24 years, Spurs reached 16 semi-finals and seven finals, twice finished third in the league and once second, but won only the League Cup in 2008 and the Europa League last season. Might they have collected more silverware with even a slightly more aggressive transfer strategy? Profitability and sustainability regulations have not been what has constrained them.

There have been two major frustrations. First, the £85m fee secured for Gareth Bale from Real Madrid was not well invested. Worse, though, was perhaps what happened after 2017-18 when Tottenham finished in the top three for a third consecutive season. They moved into the new stadium towards the end of the following season and reached the Champions League final. But the apparent positivity masked the staleness that had set in. Spurs had made no signings in the summer of 2018 and, just as significantly, failed to sell the players Mauricio Pochettino felt needed replacing. The result was they started their first full season in the new stadium badly, leading to Pochettino’s dismissal. The appointment of José Mourinho may have been a rare instance of Levy making an overtly ambitious move but it was one he misjudged, as though he were doing what it seemed like a big club would do rather than what was necessary.

The sense that Tottenham had come so close under Pochettino has inevitably affected perceptions of what has followed. What if Levy had been more prepared to take a risk? What if he had spent better? When success did finally return after 17 years it was in circumstances that made it very hard for Levy to take credit: he had so lost faith in Ange Postecoglou, the manager he had appointed, that he sacked him 16 days later.

That’s what makes his legacy so hard to assess. The vision Levy laid out to Neville was overtly commercial, and by those criteria he succeeded. Tottenham were profitable in 13 of the 15 seasons before the stadium move and, while the current debt of £850m is significant, it is understandable: as Levy said, the stadium is the envy of many other clubs.

But a football club is not just a commercial enterprise. At some point actual football matters. Some may even argue it’s the point. On that, Levy scores rather less highly.