absolutely, the stadium is meant to increase you finances so you can spend more. That's a medium to long term plan of the club which it has achieved. This is definitely a good long term plan. The question posed though, was whether it was better to have this stadium with a longer repayment plan rather than using a large capital earnt from 2015 -> 2019 on repaying the stadium off so that you save on interest/financing payments in the future at the presumably detriment of the team (transfers are never a sure thing but buying players typically equates to better performances, all hypothetical). I do believe the stadium affected your transfers and wages at the time as money that could have been allocated to the club (there is spending and reckless spending, we are not talking leeds or portsmouth who spend beyond their means and spent on capital they believed they were going to get). I don't believe for 1 second that with the 50+m from the CL and the doubling of PL revenue with the new tv deals meant you couldn't spend more on transfers or wages (that money has gone somewhere, the stadium). Poch was at the top of his game, players had been developed, you had some genuinely top top players bordering on world class and you did all this with shrewd purchases and development. That team was in its prime and all at good ages and these cycles very rarely come round where things align (you were really close twice in the league and once in the CL). Anyway, it is what it is and we will see how Levy leads your club in the future. Bigger finances do not always mean better performance if Levy doesn't sort out how the club is run. You only need to see the basket case of the gunners to see how they are slowly turning into a mid table side even with their increased spend.
The fact that we are having to argue this and the fact that we were even included in the ESL mob shows how ENIC have raised the profile of Spurs. The last few years have seen Spurs around their highest profile ever apart from brief periods in the 60's and 70's. The media and fans clamouring for silverware is another example of the expectations of a club with a history comparable to Everton, Villa, Preston, Huddersfield, Ipswich and Notts Forest. Some perspective is needed. For the first time in History the new stadium and training facilities gives Spurs an opportunity to compete with teams like Liverpool and United. The truth is we have exceeded real expectations not fallen short. Portsmouth have won the league the same number of times Spurs have.
As in life Spurf, people with high expectations will suffer disappointment when they are not met. Levy has done tremendous in guiding your club to where is it now but the last few years have seen a downturn in changes. Some people will want to stick with the guy who has did it to give them an opportunity to turn it around, some will want a new direction. It's very much the same with managers, a downturn in form, a bad season and sections of the supporters will turn. Levy is now entering the 3rd season of noticeable downturn in fortunes. We will see how he guides the club.
That's all true but the worry is who would replace ENIC. We do at least know we have a chairman who is interested in the club and not just the bottom line. People have been milking Arsenal for years but previously they looked after their golden goose I'm not sure they are now.
Yup that is also a danger on who you get as well as different fans having different expectations. You could get a dodgy chinese consortium ala wigan or you could get an american consortium like the Liverpool board who from what i can see don't really put much money but has in place good people to run it well (so far) I am intrigued to know where that line is for you when you will be unhappy with Levy. I guarantee if Levy hires Big Sam and get relegated you would probably be Levy out. Hell if Levy hires another Mourinho who plays 10 behind the ball but sneaks a CL with 1-0, i'd suspect you might not be happy even if plenty of fans would be ecstatic.
I am not happy with environment of the PL and being open to billionaire owners who may or may not be interested in the football. We try to enjoy our game in shark infested waters with no International Rescue to save us. Sky, City, Abravomich it's a large shower of ****.
Could i interest you in the chinese premier division. The moneys gone totally out of the game and i doubt it's coming back The alternative is the american MLS soccer, they actually have a salary cap there so teams are all on an "equal" footing. You'll need to get used to words like CENTREING the ball or that's a shutout for the defense
MLS is pretty blatant for teams getting around their financial rules LA Galaxy certainly did during the Beckham era (and against when they had Steven Gerrard, Ashley Cole and Robbie Keane in the same side), The Sheikh Mansour American team did similar with Pirlo, Lampard and David Villa in the same side, and Inter Miami got stung pretty recently for trying to fiddle player registration On the other hand, the irony is those teams rarely win MLS and it's more likely to be Atlanta, Toronto, Portland or Columbus
One of the biggest mistakes that the Americans made when promoting the MLS was using commentators from other sports. It's absolutely painful for anyone that's familiar with football (not ****ing soccer) and half of them didn't have a clue what they were talking about. A lot of ours are **** too though, so I'm not sure that point holds up!
Because their punishment for spending too much money is... to spend more money and pay a fine. That's not a fine, it's a bribe.
Luckily such things don't happen in the Premier League ...remind me, what was The Sheikh Mansour Team's punishment for using offshore companies to pay their own sponsorship to get around FFP?
I said part of the reason i just didn't specify how big a part Have to say i do struggle to understand why its so big though have heard we directly employ 4000 matchday staff so that alters the figures to say Man City where nearly all are sub contracted as an aside it also explains why our owners originally went down the furlough rate while pledging to make up the missing 20% .
We still have the lowest wage to turnover percentage in the league though, it was the same before the new stadium. ENIC could quite easily increase that percentage, and increase transfer spending, if they really wanted to, without doing a `Leeds or Pompey`, but they just don`t want to, their primary aim is to maximize profit. Levy`s endless poverty pleading is done for a reason, to mug everybody into believing the club is skint, even though it is now in the top 10 wealthiest clubs on revenue (it ought to be given what they charge for tickets).
The point is that 4 of the wealthier clubs are in England and while we are slowly picking them off that takes time. Every single penny that is ‘invested’ by the club is either going to be paid back by the fans and lead to a profit for the owners OR the club is going to go bust. Unless you think the owners are going to cover losses there are literally no other possibilities. Maximising profit for a football club can only be done by improving the team. Our problem is that because of Pochettino’s coaching skills and some excellent transfer business our team improved faster than our finances so we struggled to replenish it. If we had spent £200m on better players then with increased salaries as well the club would be about £1b in debt, which is certainly not a completely safe outcome. That spend would have only about matched Man U who have done little better than us.
Is that really true though? Some might say they only spend money to make money. Their financial approach to me is more of a business approach than a fan approach (not saying that’s wrong) but I often hear Levy cares about the club etc but where is the evidence of that?
One suggestion doing the rounds today: Conte has leveraged a potentially better offer from PSG at our expense (if you consider time to be an expense, which it is at this moment in time)
