When Amanda Staveley was photographed at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on October 13, attending the NFL game between the Chicago Bears and the Jacksonville Jaguars, it sparked another round of the speculation that has grown over the past few months. Could Staveley, who brokered the Saudi-backed takeover of Newcastle United and helped to run the club for three years, be about to get involved at Tottenham?
Spurs have been open about their search for investment and Staveley has been looking for a new project since she left Newcastle in July. So could Staveley do a deal with Tottenham? And what would it mean for almost 24 years of ENIC control?
From the outset, we should point out that nobody is speaking publicly about this. Contacted by The Athletic, Spurs did not comment about Staveley while the financier herself would only point back to a previous interview in which she spoke in general terms about investing in other clubs. Some sources have suggested that the policy of silence might be connected to the existence of non-disclosure agreements, while others remain sceptical about Staveley’s involvement.
This sense of smoke and mirrors is par for the course where the Premier League and high finance is concerned. And it will be very familiar to Newcastle supporters; during the early days of Staveley’s pursuit of the club, her credibility was questioned. In the end, though, she was vindicated. Could something similar really happen at Spurs?
This is what we’re hearing…
Why are Tottenham now looking for investment?
Tottenham have been very open this year about the fact that they are looking for investment. When Spurs published their accounts for the 2022-23 season on April 3, 2024, there was an accompanying statement from chairman Daniel Levy. At the bottom of it there was a striking declaration about the plans for the future of the club.
“To capitalise on our long-term potential, to continue to invest in the teams and undertake future capital projects, the Club requires a significant increase in its equity base,” the statement read. “The Board and its advisors, Rothschild & Co, are in discussions with prospective investors. Any recommended investment proposal would require the support of the Club’s shareholders.”
It was the clearest public indication yet that Tottenham believe that they are under-equitised and are looking for new external investment. They know that the top end of the Premier League is an even more competitive environment than ever before, with rival clubs having huge resources behind them. Even the tighter spending rules — Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Regulations and UEFA’s Financial Fair Play — have not levelled the playing field.
Tottenham are in a stronger position than before, with their new stadium opening in 2019 and now hosting more and more lucrative non-football events. But there is still a gap to be made up.
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium opened in 2019 (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
What is the current ownership situation at Tottenham?
ENIC bought Alan Sugar’s stake in Tottenham in December 2000, spending £22million (then around $33m) to take their ownership of the club up to 29.9 per cent. Almost 24 years on, ENIC now own 86.58 per cent of the ordinary share capital of Tottenham Hotspur.
“Mr D Levy and certain members of his family are potential beneficiaries of discretionary trusts which ultimately own 29.88% of the share capital of ENIC,” says the Tottenham website. “A discretionary trust of which certain members of Mr J Lewis’s family are potential beneficiaries ultimately owns 70.12% of the share capital of ENIC.”
‘Mr J Lewis’ is Joe Lewis, the founder of ENIC, and owner of Spurs until October 2022, when he ceded “significant control”, according to documents filed at the U.K.’s business registry, Companies House.
Earlier this year, Lewis avoided prison for insider trading and conspiracy but was forced to pay a $5million fine and serve three years’ probation by a U.S. judge.
A Spurs spokesperson said of the case: “The owner of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is ENIC, with majority control held by a family discretionary trust of which Mr Joseph Lewis is not a beneficiary. The trust is managed by two independent professional trustees on behalf of its beneficiaries.
“This is a U.S. legal matter unconnected with the club and as such have no comment.”
When ENIC first bought into Spurs, the whole club was valued at £80m. In today’s market, the club is valued at £4billion ($5.2bn), a 50-fold increase. But that does not necessarily mean that ENIC are looking to sell the whole thing. Rather, the interest is in selling a stake to a minority partner, for example selling 10 per cent of the club for £400m.
What was Amanda Staveley’s role at Newcastle? Why did she leave?
Staveley was the driving force behind Newcastle’s takeover, first attempting to buy the club from Mike Ashley in late 2017 and then returning to the negotiating table three years later with the financial might of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund behind her. After months of limbo and amid plenty of controversy about Saudi’s human rights record, the deal was finally approved by the Premier League in October 2021.
The after-effects — involving politics, the separation of state fund from state itself and what it means for the Premier League in terms of associated party transactions — continue to ripple out.
By helping to bring an end to the Ashley era, under whom the club were flatlining — in the bottom three of the table, stripped back and outsourced — Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, her husband, who were 10 per cent owners, were feted by Newcastle fans. They were also given a management contract to run the club.
There were some sources of confusion. It emerged that Staveley had taken a £10m loan from Ashley to help facilitate Newcastle’s sale, which resulted in a court case. There was a long-running lawsuit with Barclays, while Staveley’s stake in Newcastle was eventually reduced to six per cent. Last month, a company owned by Staveley went into liquidation after a petition from a Greek businessman.
Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi at St James’ Park in 2021 (Serena Taylor/Getty Images)
Yet, under their watch, Newcastle were transformed in terms of outlook and ambition. Eddie Howe was appointed Newcastle’s head coach, more than £90m was spent in their first transfer window, the team clambered to a position of safety and then, the following season, finished fourth, qualifying for Champions League for the first time in two decades. There was also a Carabao Cup final, a club-record signing in Alexander Isak and the gradual arrival of commercial sponsors and a new executive team. These achievements were real and substantive.
That executive team is effectively the reason she left. As she told The Athletic in July: “As the club continues to expand it needs a management team that can be left to do their jobs. I’ve read on social media that there’s been some kind of fallout but that’s rubbish. I love my colleagues. It just became unfair for us to constantly be there.”
As she contends with Huntington’s disease, an inherited condition that affects the brain, she could not countenance a passive role as an investor in Newcastle. “I need to work,” she said.
“Mehrdad and I are keen to be hands-on,” Staveley said three months ago. “We’re hard-working people, I love to be very busy and to engage and I love football. Very sadly, we have to move on to other projects and that might involve us taking a stake in another club or buying another club and that’s difficult. But it’s possible.”
The 51-year-old financier, who was involved in the sale of Manchester City to Sheikh Mansour in 2008, was responding to a report in Bloomberg that claimed she had raised around £500m in funding, was looking at buying a minority stake in Tottenham and which stated “initial discussions” with Rothschild had taken place. What could she say about that specifically? “Not much, I’m afraid.”
What has happened between Staveley and Spurs?
Sources with knowledge of Staveley’s plans say her interest in Spurs is genuine and has picked up pace over the last few months. They say her fund has a global remit, with investors from the United States to the Middle East rather than having a single, state-owned investment fund behind it like PIF.
The idea with Spurs would be to take an initial minority stake — this is what she has been working on — but ultimately her fund is seeking to take majority stakes in big assets and has also been looking at sporting franchises in other countries. Much as she did at Newcastle, Staveley is keen to build community links and to be “hands-on” as she said above.
Since leaving Newcastle, Staveley has met officials from the NFL who have a partnership with Tottenham to host fixtures at their stadium until 2030 and has attended American football games there.
While Spurs were among the clubs to have opposed Newcastle’s takeover by PIF, Staveley is said to have formed a positive relationship with Levy when they worked together on the Premier League’s Financial Controls Advisory Group and has spoken in private about the respect she has for him.
Yet deals such as this are rarely straightforward and it is also worth remembering that over the years there have been plenty of talks about possible investments into Spurs. Todd Boehly even led a consortium that got close to a takeover in 2019. But nothing has ever been fully agreed. Plenty of time and energy has been spent in the past speculating about deals that have not come off. The view at Tottenham right now is roughly that this is just noise about nothing.
🚨#thfc Amanda Staveley was at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium yesterday watching the NFL. pic.twitter.com/vbaBHjTiRi
— Lilywhite Rose (@Lilywhite_Rose) October 14, 2024
So could Tottenham and Staveley work together?
It would certainly be a big surprise to see Staveley owning part of Tottenham and working alongside the existing board, if that were indeed to happen. There has been remarkable boardroom stability at the top of Tottenham over the last 24 years. Levy is the longest-serving chairman in the Premier League and is now something of an elder statesman of English football. His tenure is comparable to David Moores at Liverpool or Martin Edwards at Manchester United, figures from a different generation.
Over the course of that time, there has been plenty of boardroom upheaval, takeovers and transfers of power at Spurs’ rivals. But not at Tottenham. The only major change at the club — not one to be sniffed at — was the knocking down of White Hart Lane and construction of a new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which opened in 2019.
So Tottenham always pride themselves on running things a certain way, on being a quiet, private, discreet organisation, headed up by the same people for almost one quarter-century. Staveley’s reputation is as one of English football’s disruptors, a broker who, like all good brokers, knows how to generate noise. On the surface, they do not seem like an obvious fit.
But people doubted Staveley before she arranged the Newcastle United takeover in 2021. If she could pull this one off, it would be one of the biggest stories in years.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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