Daniel Levy: Spending in Premier League 'totally unsustainable'

[Taricco the yid]

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy says the Premier League's big-spending is "totally unsustainable" and believes the likes of Manchester City will face consequences for their prodigality in the future.

Spurs are the only Premier League club yet to make a summer signing, despite selling England defender Kyle Walker to City for a deal that could reach £50 million -- a record for an English player.

"My view is that it's totally unsustainable. I'm not sure if that's the view of the other Premier League clubs, but certainly the prices that are being paid for other Premier League players I can't see it being sustainable in the long term," Levy said in a Q&A with the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York.

"I think I am a custodian of this football club. This club has been around since 1882 and when I leave it will be somebody else. I think we have a duty to manage the club appropriately. I don't think that long term for any club it's sustainable to spend more than you earn. You can have periods where you do but over the long term you can't.

"I think that some of the activity that's going on at the moment is just impossible to be sustainable. If somebody is spending £200m more than they're earning then eventually it catches up with you. You can't keep doing it.

"We've managed the club, we think, in a very appropriate way. We've invested a lot of money in physical facilities for long-term growth. So we've got one of the world's best training facilities. We've invested over £100m in that facility.

"We're now investing in the stadium. The stadium is fundamental because with that we get more fans and more income and that's the way to clearly have a more sustainable business."

"The academy is important because we can produce our own players. We don't have to go and spend £20m, £30m, £40m on a player and obviously that homegrown player has an affinity with the club that a player we buy doesn't," he said.

"That's what the fans want to see. They want to have that passion. That's what you get with a homegrown player and that's why people love Harry Kane and sing that he's one of our own."

"Regardless of the stadium project, today our position on transfers is that we have a coach that very much believes in the academy," he said.

"Unless we can find a player who would make a difference he would rather give one of our academy players a chance so that's regardless of the financing of the stadium.

"Obviously when you're building a stadium of this magnitude in a UK context it all has to be privately financed. There's no state help whatsoever.

"It is a challenge and we have to find the right balance but it's not impacting us at the moment on transfer activity because we're not yet in a place where we've found the player who we definitely want to buy but can't afford to buy."

 

[Removed at own request]

He's right of course in some parts, but to suggest there are no better players than we have in the squad that are affordable is not.

Again, it is like there is no amount between 0 and 200 million.

 

[Deleted member 7310]

Kinygerbils - 26/7/2017 10:52

He's right of course in some parts, but to suggest there are no better players than we have in the squad that are affordable is not.

Again, it is like there is no amount between 0 and 200 million.

This.

Also we need to point out that all of a sudden we shifted the terms and went from from Net spend(Or negative net spend) to Gross spend.

We are set to make over 110 million in sales - Walker, Bentaleb, Carroll, Fazio and N'jie have already made us 80, while Wimmer and Sissoko will probably get us 30-40 combined(and Lamela might also be sold). Even if we spend 80-90, we are still well within our means.

Levy is currently enjoying selling in this inflated market, but looking to buy players at a market price of 5 years ago.

 

[Removed at own request]

Pollo - 26/7/2017 11:07

Kinygerbils - 26/7/2017 10:52

He's right of course in some parts, but to suggest there are no better players than we have in the squad that are affordable is not.

Again, it is like there is no amount between 0 and 200 million.

This.

Also we need to point out that all of a sudden we shifted the terms and went from from Net spend(Or negative net spend) to Gross spend.

We are set to make over 110 million in sales - Walker, Bentaleb, Carroll, Fazio and N'jie have already made us 80, while Wimmer and Sissoko will probably get us 30-40 combined(and Lamela might also be sold). Even if we spend 80-90, we are still well within our means.

Levy is currently enjoying selling in this inflated market, but looking to buy players at a market price of 5 years ago.

Spot on, he can't complain about the prices paid when he is part of the problem.

The Squad needs investment, to carry on improving - Under was affordable, so does that mean we rate Onamah higher?

Using the same thinking, What do George/Sissoko/Njie offer that The youth players do not?

It does not make any sense, it sounds like an excuse not to spend a penny and this should be flagged if we panic buy on the last day.

 

[muttley]

I blame Everton who are acting like a kiddy in the sweetshop because they have some cashflow from Lukaku. We all know that City, Chelsea and Utd will pay big bucks and to a certain extent so will Arsenal and Liverpool. That's because their balance sheets and billionaire owners run things that way. Everton's doesn't.

The problem is that Everton paid £25-30m for Pickford, Klaassen and Keane and are now engaging in bids of over £40m for Siggy. By them being so soft in the negotiations, they are making it hard for the rest of the league and encouraging other clubs to inflate their prices on their valuable assets. They should just tell Swansea to do one, like we would.

Clubs are never surprised that Utd, City, Chelsea, PSG etc will overpay for players but because Everton are doing it as well that puts pressure on a club like Spurs. We also have a bunch of cash but are absolutely right to stick to our guns and operate the same way. We can go in for players, but if other chairmen inflate the prices then let's just walk away like we're doing now.

 

[Taricco the yid]

I dont blame the smaller clubs charging top whack for their star players as they have no chance of getting same level replacements. If swansea lose siggy then they are in deep deep shit as everything goes through him, so they want to be compensated so they can actually buy 3 players to bulk their squad.

If clubs are willing to pay what clubs want then so be it. Scouts need to be on the ball more than ever now to find those gems like alli and dier as its clear as as day we wont spend big.

Still think we will get barkley though for 25m.

 

[Real Deal]

muttley - 26/7/2017 11:48

I blame Everton who are acting like a kiddy in the sweetshop because they have some cashflow from Lukaku. We all know that City, Chelsea and Utd will pay big bucks and to a certain extent so will Arsenal and Liverpool. That's because their balance sheets and billionaire owners run things that way. Everton's doesn't.

The problem is that Everton paid £25-30m for Pickford, Klaassen and Keane and are now engaging in bids of over £40m for Siggy. By them being so soft in the negotiations, they are making it hard for the rest of the league and encouraging other clubs to inflate their prices on their valuable assets. They should just tell Swansea to do one, like we would.

Clubs are never surprised that Utd, City, Chelsea, PSG etc will overpay for players but because Everton are doing it as well that puts pressure on a club like Spurs. We also have a bunch of cash but are absolutely right to stick to our guns and operate the same way. We can go in for players, but if other chairmen inflate the prices then let's just walk away like we're doing now.

To be fair we did exactly the same when we sold Bale.....

 

[Departed]

muttley - 26/7/2017 11:48

I blame Everton who are acting like a kiddy in the sweetshop because they have some cashflow from Lukaku. We all know that City, Chelsea and Utd will pay big bucks and to a certain extent so will Arsenal and Liverpool. That's because their balance sheets and billionaire owners run things that way. Everton's doesn't.

The problem is that Everton paid £25-30m for Pickford, Klaassen and Keane and are now engaging in bids of over £40m for Siggy. By them being so soft in the negotiations, they are making it hard for the rest of the league and encouraging other clubs to inflate their prices on their valuable assets. They should just tell Swansea to do one, like we would.

Clubs are never surprised that Utd, City, Chelsea, PSG etc will overpay for players but because Everton are doing it as well that puts pressure on a club like Spurs. We also have a bunch of cash but are absolutely right to stick to our guns and operate the same way. We can go in for players, but if other chairmen inflate the prices then let's just walk away like we're doing now.

This is wrong.

 

[Removed at own request]

Paul C?
@clifton_paul
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When Sergio Aguero slammed that 93rd min title winner in , all I could think of was "I hope one day we can balance the books like Spurs do"
6:52 PM - 25 Jul 2017

 

[muttley]

Real Deal - 26/7/2017 12:32

muttley - 26/7/2017 11:48

I blame Everton who are acting like a kiddy in the sweetshop because they have some cashflow from Lukaku. We all know that City, Chelsea and Utd will pay big bucks and to a certain extent so will Arsenal and Liverpool. That's because their balance sheets and billionaire owners run things that way. Everton's doesn't.

The problem is that Everton paid £25-30m for Pickford, Klaassen and Keane and are now engaging in bids of over £40m for Siggy. By them being so soft in the negotiations, they are making it hard for the rest of the league and encouraging other clubs to inflate their prices on their valuable assets. They should just tell Swansea to do one, like we would.

Clubs are never surprised that Utd, City, Chelsea, PSG etc will overpay for players but because Everton are doing it as well that puts pressure on a club like Spurs. We also have a bunch of cash but are absolutely right to stick to our guns and operate the same way. We can go in for players, but if other chairmen inflate the prices then let's just walk away like we're doing now.

To be fair we did exactly the same when we sold Bale.....

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Because Real Madrid are one of those massive clubs we absolutely milked them for Bale, mostly based on his future brand. As for how we spent the money there was probably nothing wrong with the fees we paid for Chiriches, Capoue, Chadli and even Paulinho's value was about right. Eriksen was a very Spursy type signing as we waited for his contract to run down and nicked our future Spurs legend for little money. We absolutely overpaid for Soldado and Lamela when it was Benteke that we should have bid for that money.

 

[Departed]

Everton are doing nothing wrong. They are a victim of and/or benefitting from the current market.

The actual transactions are relatively neutral in terms of cash position. Which is how we have been running our player acquisition and sale business since Levy took over.

THe real issue is ongoing expenses/salaries.

 

[Deleted member 7310]

The real issue is agents, it's about time someone deals with them.

 

[Departed]

Don't agree completely Pollo. The real issue is TV money. You can't get blood from a stone. The agents see this MASSIVE pile of money sitting there and want a piece of it. Ethics aside, they are doing what any commission compensated person would do.

Levy is counting on the spending rules kicking in and curtailing the Manchesters' and Chelsea's spending.

We shall see.

It really is the old style of ownership against corporate style ownership. Should it be regulated?

Philosophically, at least from my point of view, no. But if the goal is better, more exciting competitions then player salaries should be regulated. And we are seeing the beginnings of a movement in that direction.

 

[Spursex]

Levy is right and wrong.

For the big clubs where commercial revs have grown at unprecedented rates year after year, actually outstripping the growth rate in media fees, they can sustain it.

For clubs like Spurs and the rest of the PL where it hasn't and are essentially reliant on two almost fixed predictable revenue streams, it isn't.

But the new stadium will allow us to bridge the gap, that is, if at that point the owners (and it may well not be ENIC) want to.

The next new media deal is in comparative terms going to be much more sober - transfer selling growth in pricing of this rate we've seen this season is impossible to sustain.

I remain convinced we will spend in this window, but we're just not going to chuck away millions and perhaps even tens of millions to get them in much before the window closes.

 

[Spursex]

Question;

Would you buy Barkley for £50 mill now, or £30 mill as the transfer window closes, or would you (as his agent is now repeating what I said two weeks ago) simply dig your heels in and bide your time and sign a pre-contract in 6 months time, at which point 6 months later you become a free agent and can then demand (and get) a signing on fee of 10's of millions?

I wonder what his agent is advising him to do...?

I suspect I know what I would do.

 

[Removed at own request]

Spursex - 26/7/2017 16:34

Question;

Would you buy Barkley for £50 mill now, or £30 mill as the transfer window closes, or would you (as his agent is now repeating what I said two weeks ago) simply dig your heels in and bide your time and sign a pre-contract in 6 months time, at which point 6 months later you become a free agent and can then demand (and get) a signing on fee of 10's of millions?

I wonder what his agent is advising him to do...?

I suspect I know what I would do.

It's all a bit muddied now as he is injured - but if he was fit you would get him in as soon as possible as it could be the difference.

What is the excuse for Lopez? we offered £2 million.

 

[Spursex]

Kinygerbils - 26/7/2017 16:42

Spursex - 26/7/2017 16:34

Question;

Would you buy Barkley for £50 mill now, or £30 mill as the transfer window closes, or would you (as his agent is now repeating what I said two weeks ago) simply dig your heels in and bide your time and sign a pre-contract in 6 months time, at which point 6 months later you become a free agent and can then demand (and get) a signing on fee of 10's of millions?

I wonder what his agent is advising him to do...?

I suspect I know what I would do.

It's all a bit muddied now as he is injured - but if he was fit you would get him in as soon as possible as it could be the difference.

What is the excuse for Lopez? we offered £2 million.

You wouldn't get him in asap unless you had ten's of millions to burn - and we clearly don't.

As for lopez, I haven't got a clue,; but what I was told is that his agent(S) here and in Spain were 'playing games' - I think I know what they were, but I'd be stupid to repeat these allegation here.

I don't believe for one minute a few million more was the issue, we've wasted far more than that on agents fees every season.

 

[Matic]

Spursex - 26/7/2017 16:34

Question;

Would you buy Barkley for £50 mill now, or £30 mill as the transfer window closes, or would you (as his agent is now repeating what I said two weeks ago) simply dig your heels in and bide your time and sign a pre-contract in 6 months time, at which point 6 months later you become a free agent and can then demand (and get) a signing on fee of 10's of millions?

I wonder what his agent is advising him to do...?

I suspect I know what I would do.

It's a World Cup year, so the situation could be more complicated. If Barkley and Koeman have fallen out, Barkley may have to move now to secure an England place through game time. Agents want their clients in the big international cups and Barkley will be wanting to ensure he is in a decent position to ensure that happens this season.

My guess is Barkley will move this summer but it will be very, very late in the window. Everton have the upper hand.

 

[Deleted member 7310]

Everton don't have the upper hand Koeman with another interview, he is doing his best to get rid of him but doing so in a poor way. Just admitted no offer came in.

He seems to have taken it to a personal level.

 

[Taricco the yid]

Spursex - 26/7/2017 16:34

Question;

Would you buy Barkley for £50 mill now, or £30 mill as the transfer window closes, or would you (as his agent is now repeating what I said two weeks ago) simply dig your heels in and bide your time and sign a pre-contract in 6 months time, at which point 6 months later you become a free agent and can then demand (and get) a signing on fee of 10's of millions?

I wonder what his agent is advising him to do...?

I suspect I know what I would do.

If I was him i would wait but then he is probably thinking about the WC. He needs to shine this season. WC or choose where you want to go in a years time. Tough choice.