It’s a new era at Tottenham Hotspur. Daniel Levy is out, now is the time of Vinai Venkatesham. With Levy’s role as Executive Chairman being eliminated and his role on the board replaced by Non-Executive Chairman Peter Charrington, focus now turns to Spurs CEO Vinai Venkatesham as the face of the football side of the organization.
Tottenham released a new video on YouTube today — an interview with Venkatesham as CEO where he outlined the immediate future after Levy’s leadership, but also communicated the board’s (i.e. the Lewis family’s) ambitions for where Tottenham Hotpsur can and should go next. And he also made it very, very clear — Tottenham Hotspur are not for sale and will not be sold.
Here’s the video, followed by a few summary bullet points from my viewing.
The Daniel Levy news might have come as a shock, but Tottenham is a club that is very well structured and “succession ready.” Levy leaving doesn’t leave a leadership void; inside the club everything is very much business as usual.
Levy’s legacy is firmly established with the new training center, media center, and stadium, as well as his taking the club to a position of financial stability and strength over 25 years. He was an incredible leader and will be missed.
The Lewis Family (majority stakeholders) are massive Spurs fans and have an ambitious vision for the club and where they want it to be. That ambition is to maximize the potential of both the men’s and women’s teams, giving them the best chance to be successful on the pitch. The Lewis Family also want to enter into an era of “calm and stability.”
The Lewis Family’s intention is to be long-term stewards of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and as such they have absolutely no intention of selling; they expect that their ownership of the club will “extend through the generations”.
Peter Charrington, as non-executive chairman, will not be involved in the club in a full-time, day-to-day basis. He will lead the Tottenham Hotspur board, but will empower people like Vinai to run football operations regularly.
There is “firm backing” from the Lewis family against the club’s ambitions to be successful on the pitch. This includes both the men’s and women’s teams. Vinai did not want to put a number on and was careful with his wording to avoid “transfer war chest” stories in the papers tomorrow. Spurs will continue to be aware of FFP rules and will work to stay within those guidelines; there will also be a continued focus on revenue growth and developing academy talent.
I’ll be honest — this is a very good video. Venkatesham is a gifted communicator and he outlines what’s coming in clear and concise language. I also appreciate the transparency — one of the criticisms of Levy was that he rarely communicated directly with the supporters and almost never gave interviews. It led to a disconnect between Levy’s leadership and a lot of Spurs fans, because it gave the impression that the things that were happening at the board level were behind an impenetrable veil of secrecy.
Vinai, by contrast, is affable and clearly comfortable on camera. I hope this starts a new era of greater transparency and communication between the club and the fans — even if Spurs fans disagree with a particular decision, having someone sit in front of a camera and say “this is how we’re doing things and these are the reasons why” makes it a lot easier to accept things.
I also appreciated Vinai going almost out of his way to include Tottenham Hotspur Women as part of the club’s ambitions — while it comes on the heels of a somewhat lackluster summer transfer window, it’s clear that Martin Ho was hired with the full backing of Venkatesham and the board, and hopefully that ambition transfers into renewed and increased financial support.
The video is short — only about 8 minutes long — and is worth watching in full if you have a chance.