Will ManC actually ever be properly punished for what they have done?
If Manc had been more sorry and less belligerent, they might have gained some sympathy
By Tony Attwood
Now we know Tottenham are in a mess when it comes to results – they went 14 games without a win from mid January to early April last season. But of course other teams can have bad times too, and with the Totts winning three, drew two and losing one of the last six they were considered to be doing ok. That cued wild celebrations and excitement – or at last a bit of a cheer at the Unsponsored Stadium. The new man Roberto De Zerbi was clearly the real deal in that he DIDN’T LOSE EVERY GAME!!!
So yet again he was given a mega massive bowl of blank cheques to fill in because he was the right thing, the man to take the Tiny Totts to the top. The only question was how could Tottenham afford to buy anyone? And of course there is the issue of how come they are now at the… well, not to put too fine a point on it …. the bottom of the league. As it were.
Tonali, Fernandes, Savio… well I won’t embarrass them and the club by listing them all. And they also went picking up the freebies like Robertson and Senesi etc. And a loan or two. Swiss Ramble, (the emailer who knows about these things and whose regular bulletins I can’t recommend highly enough) reckons all told it reached over one third of a billion pounds which in terms of my personal income is “quite a lot”. Only Man City who were about to fall off the edge of the cliff, and Chelsea who regularly did just that but then find someone who gave them enough cash to rebuild the bridge), spent more. Arsenal spent under £200m. Even Newcastle who are trying to buy their way back up the league spent less.
So to cope with this demand for more money the club had to sell, sell and sell again with a sort of desperation that makes one think the directors knew they had got on board a sinking wreck. But of course fire sales (which this looked like) never bring that much although some players looked as if they were only too pleased to get out.
Thus in the summer Tottenham decided yet again to go with a new manager and a new team. And yes Tottenham brought in 50% more from sales than Arsenal, but at the same time spent 70% more than Arsenal and it looked like they were really determined to sort things. They had come fifth in 2023/4 but sunk to 17th (one above relegation) in 2024/5. In the summer of 2025 they really needed to show their dedicated fans that this was just a blip and the good times were just around the corner – with purchases not just in this window, but future windows too.
Roberto De Zerbi, who liked to be called Tottenham’s “head coach”, announced that he only had a dozen players worthy of a place in the club. Now as anyone involved in sales will tell you, telling the buyers that all you have to offer is crap is not really a very good selling point but you know these Tiny Totts’ owners – they’ve got money coming out of their …. well … So they gave him some more. Then, as the project crashed, they came out with the rather lame idea that it takes time for new players to get used to a new club.
A net outflow of two thirds of a billion pounds over a couple of seasons… and as a result they are…. not very exciting. But why? Did they buy rubbish? Well, we can debate that but the key thing is that they hardly got anything for the players they were selling – and all this at a time when they themselves have admitted that paying for the new stadium is a bit of a chore.
This is particularly seen as a problem because Tottenham were hoping to get £30m a year for a stadium naming rights deal deal – but it seems no one wants to sponsor the home of a club that just teeters on the edge of relegation each year.
And that is the background to the issue of Tottenham buying a team, having a manager, sacking a manager, not having a ground sponsor and buying a new team. That’s dodgy at the best of times, but when you already have the biggest overdraft in the league, that’s a problem.
Now we know that the media don’t like to talk “cash flow,” believing that football fans are not bright enough to cope with such a concept, but in simple terms it can be argued that another major downturn and Tottenham might be hitting the dirt. And that’s not good when when you still have a whacking great mortgage on the ground.
And all this comes with the problem of changing managers in an emergency as each new man wants to buy loads of new players and says all the previous purchases were disasters – which means they are sold at a discount. In short they are losing money big time. Swiss Ramble reckons they spent over a third of a billion pounds more in 2024/25 than they earned. And they still haven’t paid for the stadium yet. And they have a debt which I reckon is more than doubling every two years.
Worse again a lot of that money is owed in unpaid transfer fees. Now all clubs pay transfer fees over time, often over four years – that is accepted. But miss a payment and the club to whom the money is owed generally either states it will report the club to the League (which will lead to a sanction meaning the club can’t buy any more players until its debts are cleared) or demand a discount. Neither, for a club in financial trouble, is good news.
Tottenham are not the worst in the league financially, but the clubs that owe more in terms of transfer debt are all clubs whose financial reports show they can easily afford to pay each installment: Manchester United and Manchester City each at over £400m and Chelsea at over £350m. Tottenham are second in the overall debt table – but this matters because they also owe over three quarters of a billion pounds on the cost of building their new stadium with most of it coming from the owners. Chelsea, I should add are working on an utterly different model – one where they look to make money on the buying and selling of players – it is a totally different approach.
The problem is, as Swiss Ramble points out, Tottenham “have now reported losses six years in a row, culminating in the club record loss of £121m in 2024/25. As a result, they lost £462m in the last six years, compared to £408m of profits in the preceding 6-year period.” If you want to know more on this I really would recommend you subscribe to Swiss Ramble, whose reports are incredibly detailed and very helpful.
But just in case for some reason you don’t, allow me to offer one more thought from them….. It is that Tottenham’s “huge losses came even before the recent substantial transfer spend, raising the question of whether Tottenham will be able to comply with the various financial regulations, as operated by both the Premier League and UEFA.”
Now there’s a thought.
Arsenal News, Only Arsenal, Blogs, Transfer News
Arsenal News, Only Arsenal, Blogs, Transfer News