Tottenham investment update as Florentino Perez's Real Madrid statement changes everything for Amanda Staveley
Today at 01:48 PM
Amanda Staveley is one of the very biggest names in football finance and news that she wants to buy into Tottenham has been greeted positively by Spurs supporters.
Crucially, Staveley would almost certainly not use her own money to buy a stake in Spurs from Daniel Levy or ENIC but rather orchestrate a consortium of high net worth individuals to invest in the club.
Speaking to TBR Football earlier this year, Liverpool University football finance lecturer and industry insider Kieran Maguire said Middle Eastern and American investors are interested in Spurs via this avenue.
Tottenham have been looking for fresh investment for years but Staveley, who left her role as a minority shareholder and director at Newcastle United in July, is the first name to been reliably linked.
Staveley has also looked at AS Monaco alongside her husband and PCP Capital Partners business partner Mehrdad Ghodoussi.
The pair are among the most experienced takeover brokers in the sport, having engineered PIF’s investment in Newcastle three years ago and the Abu Dhabi-backed regime change at Man City in 2008.
The mergers and acquisitions market is crowded at the moment, with as many as seven Premier League clubs seeking investment in some form.
On the continent meanwhile, financial turbulence within French football, the proliferation of multi-club empires, and private equity’s hunger to invest in the game have shaken up the investment racket.
However, one club no one foresaw being the catalyst for another goldrush was Spanish titans Real Madrid.
Florentino Perez courts Real Madrid investment clamour – Spurs set to feel knock-on effect
Once upon a time, Tottenham signed up for what they thought termed a ‘special relationship’ with Real Madrid, prompted by the sale of Luka Modric to the 15-time Champions League winners in 2012.
In the end, the collaboration – which was meant to centre around resource and knowledge sharing – never amounted to much.
Unlike Spurs and indeed every other English club, Real Madrid have an unconventional ownership structure in that they are effectively owned by 60,000 fee-paying fans or ‘socios’.
However, controversial Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, who collaborated with Daniel Levy on the aborted European Super League plot, has announced that this could soon change.
As relayed by Bloomberg, the 77-year-old billionaire has opened up the possibility that, for the first time in the club’s history, private investors could be invited into the fold.
Speaking at Real’s general assembly, Perez also said that the club is valued at around £8.5bn.
TBR has repeatedly been told by those within football finance circles that the consortium that Staveley has assembled is fragile, with investors having only provided conditional support at this stage.
The potential emergence of arguably the biggest club in world football on the mergers and acquisitions market – and particularly those seeking a blue-chip minority investment – could be a game-changer.
Daniel Levy’s Tottenham investment strategy: Will Amanda Staveley play ball?
Amanda Staveley’s gravitation towards Tottenham makes sense in terms of the profile of the club.
She immersed herself in commercial operations to great effect at Newcastle, and Spurs are a club whose commercial focus is absolutely central to their business model.
Since the move to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2019, the emphasis on sponsorship, merchandise and events has helped their revenue skyrocket, thereby increasing their enterprise value.
That is one of the primary reasons that Daniel Levy thinks Spurs are worth £3.75bn in total.
However, in practice, several analysts consulted by this site have suggested that Staveley and Spurs are hardly a match made in heaven.
Staveley has the degenerative neurological condition Huntingon’s disease and has cited this when emphasising that she wants a hands-on role within football – “I need to work,” she has said previously.
However, Levy is unlikely to give up much control to a minority investor in N17. A 10-20 per cent investment might not even guarantee a seat on the board.
For Staveley, that is far from ideal.
After all, minority investment is often described as the most expensive season ticket in football.
