In defense of ENIC: or why tottenham are about to be sold in two years

 

Football's a funny sport sometimes but spurs fans, #ENICout banners at the ready, are not laughing. There been much said about Tottenham's dysfunction from their poorly managed transfer windows, a lack of investment in the club to an increasing lack of direction but here we’ll make the argument that in every area from the club’s financing, recruitment, coaching/development, systems and morale make the argument that for all gripes from spurs everywhere about ENIC and Daniel Levy, spurs are in a way better position on all fronts than they would be in other hands 

It was now three years ago November that former chairman and owner Alan Sugar publicly revealed that buying spurs was worse investment and made him “miserable” despite making £25m after the buying the club for £8m (inflation is the 9th wonder of the world) however, watching ENIC turn Tottenham Hotspurs into what Forbes magazine estimates to be a 2.3bn commodity, Alan Sugar must be on suicide watch. 

This success is no mean feat as Football is a tough business at the best of times and despite their detractors, ENIC have been shrewd in traversing the often-crummy economics of the beautiful game where costs rise in spite of scale and demands from core customers don’t abate over time. Fans have clearly forgotten the state the club was in under Sugar with the club swinging violent from middling also rans to dangerous flirtations with relegation. It's an easy argument for us make that if Alan Sugar held onto the club Tottenham would be where Middlesbrough (a reach as Gibson to a fault backed his managers, Sugar not so much) are now or worse. 

For all the criticism of the club's transfer policy under ENIC (we’ll get into that later), the Tottenham of today is unrecognizable from the Tottenham of twenty years ago. ENIC has invested heavily in improving the club infrastructure from building a state-of-the-art training facility and their crowning achievement the 63,000 poorly named “Tottenham Hotspur Stadium” fitting for a club with the elevated ambition that has come with the club success 

What has managed overshadow much of that ENIC’s success in making Tottenham competitive with premier league’s elite is the often shall we say uneven handling of transfer windows which has often left head coaches shorthanded, unsatisfied or worse, both.   

Granted, there is much to pin Levy’s door when it comes to Tottenham's failures in the transfer market of late as the squad is due a rebuild and everybody knows it. The clear lack of investment reeks of either a lack of ambition or, to us at least, an unwillingness only to end up empty handed once again. Our theory, ENIC are probably looking to cash in as the level of investment it would take for Tottenham at least compete with Liverpool's and Man City’s of the world is vast (our estimation, at least a billion over the next five years) and makes no sense financially. 

Maybe the #ENICout crowd are right but without the stewardship of ENIC, it’s a sure bet spurs wouldn’t be in this position anyhow.  

In sum, this is short version of much larger argument we’ll put out later but looking at the progress the club made over the last 20 years has been immense and maybe #ENICout are correct as it seems both Levy and owner Joe Lewis aren’t willing to invest the absurd amount of money it would take for Tottenham to compete with the likes of Liverpool or Man City and should put the club on the market. 

However, the fac that Tottenham were able to compete with bigger rivals for as long as they have for much of the last decade would not be possible without ENIC.