Daniel Levy once blocked the arrival of a manager at Tottenham Hotspur, with his nationality playing a significant role in the rejection.
Tottenham Hotspur, currently 17th in the Premier League, are battling relegation this season after underwhelming managerial stints from Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor.
It has now been revealed that back in the early 2000s, club chairman Daniel Levy enforced a coach selection criteria that could have prevented Tottenham Hotspur’s relegation-fighting woes this season.
No Dutchmen, no Danes at Tottenham Hotspur
Frank Arnesen, once director of football at Spurs, revealed in his book ‘Total Football’ that Daniel Levy blocked the arrival of a Danish manager in 2004 due to nationality concerns.
As reported by Ekstra Bladet, Morten Olsen was considered by Arnesen, his fellow Dane, to manage Spurs after guiding Denmark to the World Cup 2002 and Euro 2004.
Despite Arnesen’s insistence that Olsen was the right fit for the club, Daniel Levy had other ideas and enforced a coach selection criteria that ruled out two nationalities.
“Tottenham needed a new head coach the summer I joined the club. I wanted Morten Olsen, but I was not allowed to take a coach from Denmark or the Netherlands,” said Arnesen.
“It was a requirement. If things didn’t go well in the first three or four months, I would come under extra pressure because I had chosen a coach from a country I was attached to, Daniel Levy thought. There was no reason to take any risks,” he continued.
Olsen corroborated Arnesen’s recollection of events, stating that Spurs pursued him as both a player and as a manager during his footballing career.
“They wanted to take me at some point while I was still playing,” claimed Olsen. “I ended up going to Cologne instead.
“I would not have accepted the offer if the offer had come. The offer would have came in the middle of a contract. And I did not want to leave in the middle of a contract period,” he continued.
Olsen, who managed the Denmark national team from 2000 to 2015 and was named Danish Player of the Year in 1986, couldn’t recall the exact details of Spurs’ approach, however, he confirmed that if an offer had arrived, he would have rejected it due to his commitment to Denmark.