The story of Tottenham Hotspur in the 21st century has been the story of the relationship between Daniel Levy, the long-standing chairman, and the Lewis family, the majority shareholders. Levy started working for Joe Lewis as a young man in the 1990s, was widely thought of as Lewis’ protegee, and became the managing director of ENIC, the investment firm who bought 29.9 per cent of Tottenham from Alan Sugar in December 2000 for £22million.
Levy became chairman in 2001 and, for 24 years, he ran Tottenham with a firm grip, as the club grew into a huge global brand, valued at roughly £4billion ($5.4bn), playing in one of the best new stadiums in Europe. The Lewis family were content to stay in the background, as Levy became the public face of the club.
But on Thursday September 4, that working relationship, the one that defined Spurs, came to an end. Levy was told that he was being removed as executive chairman. Peter Charrington, the director of ENIC and former banker, the man appointed to the board by the Lewis family in March, would be stepping into the new role of non-executive chairman.
The news could hardly have come as more of a shock. Many staff had no idea until the email came round from CEO Vinai Venkatesham, coinciding with the official statement, which said that Levy had “stepped down”. The statement contained some brief quotes from Levy, saying that he was “incredibly proud” of his work at Spurs, thanking the fans, and promising that he would continue to support the team.
As much of a shock as Thursday was, though, this seismic event had deep roots. Multiple sources have spoken in recent years about the relationship between Levy and the Lewis family no longer being as closely aligned as it once was. More specifically, it can be traced back to the start of this year when the Lewis family decided to take a serious look into one of the thorniest questions at Spurs, the question on the lips of so many fans: why is the team performing so badly?
Of course, last season ended in glory on the pitch with the Europa League win in Bilbao in May. But in the Premier League, it was a disaster, Spurs’ worst league season in almost 50 years. Even that trophy was Spurs’ first major one since the 2008 League Cup. Since they reached the Champions League final in 2019, Tottenham have finished in the top four of the Premier League only once, in 2021-22. For all the improvements in the training ground (opened in 2012) and stadium (in 2019), consistent competitiveness on the pitch has been hard to find. Only briefly under Mauricio Pochettino were Tottenham challenging at the top end of the league season after season.
At the start of this year, the Lewis family sought the help of U.S. management consultancy firm Gibb River to look into this. They went into the club to interview senior members of staff to find out what was going wrong. This was not a review to find out how to trim costs, find efficiencies and save money. It was about something bigger. What needed to change, in a sporting and operational sense, to get Tottenham winning again?
This review also coincided with a new appointment to the board. On March 12, in came Charrington, the former CEO of Citi Private Banking, appointed to represent the interests of the majority shareholder in the club. Charrington quickly started to learn about how things worked. Less than six months after arriving, he has now stepped into the main chair.
There were more boardroom changes to follow. In April, it was announced that Vinai Venkatesham would be joining Tottenham as the new CEO. That in itself was a radical change of direction for the club, which had never had a CEO in the ENIC era, but it was a change approved by the Lewis family. And at the end of the season, it was announced that executive director Donna-Maria Cullen would be leaving the club, having been one of the most influential people behind the scenes throughout the Levy tenure.
There were other changes too on the football side, with chief football officer Scott Munn leaving and, of course, Ange Postecoglou being dismissed and replaced by Thomas Frank.
Initially, these changes felt like an overdue updating of how the club did business. One of the most striking things about the Levy era at Spurs was that even as the club grew and grew off the pitch — employing hundreds of new staff, moving into a £1.2billion stadium, expanding the brand around the world — at its heart it was run the same way: by Levy and those closest to him. It almost felt akin to a family-run business. Even if — as this week emphatically proved — the power still lay with the Lewis family.
Because Levy was not just one of the longest-serving Premier League chairmen of the modern era. He was also one of the most dominant, across everything that happened in his club with ferocious attention to detail. The stories about Levy choosing almost every fixture and fitting in the new stadium are well-worn by now. Every few years, Tottenham would appoint a new sporting director or technical director but, ultimately, Levy would always still have his hands on the steering wheel. Just last month, he was personally negotiating with Steve Parish as Spurs attempted to sign Eberechi Eze, who ended up at Arsenal.
The arrival of Venkatesham felt like a step into the future for Spurs, as the club started to resemble most of its rivals, with a powerful CEO rather than just a hands-on executive chairman. Venkatesham and Levy, who had been close for years, had a good working relationship. When they made a video together in June, posted on Tottenham’s YouTube channel, it felt like the start of a new era. Not just for Venkatesham but also for Levy, speaking to the public in a more relaxed and informal way than he had done for years. When Levy sat down for a chatty interview with Gary Neville and said, “When I’m not here, I’m sure I’ll get the credit”, it did not sound like a prediction of his imminent departure. It sounded more like a fresh start.
Staff were enjoying a more open, communicative club culture, driven by Venkatesham and Frank. Fans were enjoying more constructive discussions with the club too. Fresh appointments were planned to bring the club’s management structure further into the modern era. A strong start for Frank and a strong finish to the transfer window underlined a sense that things might be moving in the right direction again.
But, ultimately, the biggest change of all was yet to come, the final act of this dramatic power play. That came on Thursday with Levy’s removal. The changes that started this year could not be fully realised until the most important man at the club had gone. And this was no gradual transfer of power. Levy was working on club business right up until the end. Tottenham Hotspur’s post-Levy era, a phrase that still takes some getting used to, starts today.
No one could argue that Levy did not have a good run. Future historians will debate his legacy, how the football landscape changed during his tenure, the importance of his infrastructure projects, whether he appointed the right managers at the right time, whether he backed them enough. All of this will be discussed for decades.
But it is difficult to argue that the Levy era delivered enough on the pitch over its 24 years: one League Cup in 2008, one Europa League in 2025. The team feels further away from the top of the Premier League than it did five or even 10 years ago. Many fans, clearly, had run out of patience with the way that Levy ran the football side of the club. They felt that Levy’s tenure, his distinct way of doing things, had finally run out of road. And the Lewis family agreed that it was time for a change to push for more success on the pitch. “Generations of the Lewis family support this special football club,” one person close to the Lewis family told The Athletic, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And they want what the fans want — more wins, more often.”
For decades, the Lewis family has been in the background at Spurs. Joe Lewis always had a public profile but he stepped away from involvement with the club, ceasing to be a ‘person of significant control’ in October 2022, following a reorganisation of the family trusts. Lewis, now 88, pleaded guilty to insider trading in January 2024, having been indicted for “orchestrating a brazen insider trading scheme” in the summer of 2023.
The Lewis family trust effectively controls just over 60 per cent of the club’s shares (70.1 per cent of ENIC’s stake), while the rest of ENIC’s shares are owned by Levy and his family via a similar setup of discretionary trusts. They retain these shares — roughly 25 per cent of the club’s shares — despite Levy’s exit, the club confirming on Thursday that nothing has changed in the “ownership or shareholder structure”.
Vivienne and Charles Lewis have never had the same public profile as their father Joe, but attention will now turn to them as two of the key figures at Tottenham Hotspur. The question that Spurs fans will now have for the Lewis family — not just Vivienne and Charles but their children too — is what exactly they want to do with the club. Having Levy in place as chairman for so long, the visible public face of the club, effectively spared the majority shareholders from scrutiny.
The priority will be supporting the new management team to bring success. “In Vinai, Thomas and Peter Charrington, they believe they are backing the right team to deliver on this,” the person close to the Lewis family said. But it is a measure of how dramatic this summer has been at Tottenham Hotspur, that the longest serving of those three is Charrington, and he only arrived at the club in March. Replacing all the work that Cullen did was one thing, replacing everything Levy did will be quite another. It will be a huge test of the individuals and of the club’s new structures, some of which are still being built. There has been a big emphasis on transparency and communication this summer, and that will be more important than ever as fans adjust to the new era.
The biggest question of all will be what the Lewis family’s long-term intentions are for the club. Rumours of ENIC selling have been constant ever since they first bought out Alan Sugar almost 25 years ago. In recent years, the attention has not been on a full sale as much as the possibility of selling a stake, maybe 10% of the club for £400million, providing fresh equity. Levy admitted in April 2024 that “the club requires a significant increase in its equity base”, and said that the board and their advisors Rothschild were “in discussions with prospective investors”. Such a deal might have strengthened Levy’s hand, providing him with fresh resources to compete with richer teams. But for all of the rumours, no stake in the club was ever sold.
Now that Levy has gone, all of those questions will fall to the Lewis family to answer. For all the public assumption that the Lewis family are preparing for a full sale now that Levy is out of the picture, nothing is thought to be close. Prospective buyers were as surprised as anyone by Thursday’s news. And the first focus of the Lewis family from here will be on trying to make the team more successful and more consistent.
That will mean wrestling with the questions Levy faced up until Thursday: how can a team Tottenham’s size compete with richer rivals? How much should they be prepared to risk on wages and transfer fees? Can they find new funding or will they have to get more from other revenue streams, even if they prove unpopular with the fans? What is the right balance between young and experienced players, between managers who win and managers who entertain? These were the issues that Levy spent 24 years trying to solve. Now the Lewis family must find answers of their own.
(Top image: Demetrius Robinson for The Athletic; Paul Terry/Sportimage/Cal Sport Media via AP Images)