Tottenham have received a cash boost of £100m from their owners, the Lewis family trust, with further funding poised to follow which will provide Thomas Frank with greater room for manoeuvre in the transfer market.
The club have long sought fresh investment to enable their varied plans to expand the business, which include numerous non-football projects. But the priority is on-field success; there is an awareness at boardroom level that it is the principal driver for everything.
The 17th-placed Premier League finish last season was a disaster and the target for Frank this time out is to return the team to the top five, mainly for sporting reasons but also to drive revenue streams and keep the club’s value high.
Frank was permitted to spend about £125m on players last summer – most notably Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons – with the club also committed to paying combined fees of about £50m to make the deals for Kevin Danso and Mathys Tel permanent.
Frank has started well – he has the team third – and will be backed in January if the right signings are available at the right prices. The usual disclaimer about the mid-season window being a difficult time to add to the squad applies.
The £100m equity injection has come from the Lewis family fortune and they have put it into Spurs via their investment vehicle, Enic. A source close to the family said: “This is initial additional funding. As the club’s management decides what’s needed to deliver success, more money will be available. The Lewis family is committed to backing the club to be successful.”
The Lewis family and the rest of the Spurs executive tier continue to insist the club are not for sale. Spurs have been stalked by takeover talk for a long time and it has intensified since the former chairman Daniel Levy was ousted in early September.
The club have rejected expressions of interest from three groups. One was Amanda Staveley’s PCP International Finance; another a consortium of investors led by Dr Roger Kennedy and Wing-Fai Ng through Firehawk Holdings Limited; and the third came from a United States-based consortium led by the tech entrepreneur Brooklyn Earick.
Spurs said in a statement that the £100m injection from the Lewis family would “further strengthen the club’s financial position and equip the leadership team with additional resources to continue the focus on driving long-term sporting success. This additional capital is part of the Lewis family’s ongoing commitment to the club and its future.”
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Peter Charrington, the Spurs nonexecutive chairman, said: “Our focus is on stability and empowering the management team to deliver on the club’s ambitions. I know the Lewis family are also ambitious for the future. Today’s capital commitment reflects that ambition and I would like to thank them for their ongoing support. We will continue to do all we can to ensure that Vinai [Venkatesham, the chief executive] and his team are supported in the best way possible to take this club forward.”
Spurs’s non-football projects include the building of a hotel and an indoor arena close to the stadium; an expansion of the training ground in Enfield to take in a hub for the women’s team and even a bespoke NFL training facility; and numerous residential developments in the Tottenham area.
