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£500m Tottenham investment pact may already be agreed as Amanda Staveley in talks with Qatari VIPs.
It is a somewhat surreal trend in 21st-century football that many fans dream of their club becoming an enclave for Gulf state billionaires, but Amanda Staveley might just deliver that dream at Tottenham.
As the broker behind the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s takeover of Newcastle United and Abu Dhabi-backed buyout of Manchester City, Staveley appreciates the modern game’s passion for petrodollars.
The dealmaker, a former model and girlfriend of Prince Andrew, is one of the most respected operators in football finance and, unlike many in the sport, is a genuine fan.
Amanda Staveley attends the UEFA lunch between Milan and Newcastle at Ristorante Cracco on September 19, 2023 in Milan, Italy
Photo by Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto via Getty Images
She and her husband and business partner Mehrdad Ghodoussi therefore understand the emotions of supporters, how to craft a narrative centred around them and use them to their strategic advantage.
That was clear to see in her rhetoric ahead of the Newcastle takeover in October 2021, which sold a vision to fans of the club becoming a global powerhouse by drawing on a bottomless well of Saudi cash.
So when it emerged in June that Staveley had raised £500m and is interested in buying into Tottenham, it naturally went down well with Spurs fans.
The 51-year-old financier’s book of contacts in the Middle East is peerless as far as potential investors are concerned, inviting fans to envision Persian Gulf money flooding into North London.
Since then, it has emerged that – as reported by TBR Football – Staveley is speaking to potential deal partners in the Middle East and the United States.
Given the capricious form of Ange Postecoglou’s side and the growing agitations about Daniel Levy and ENIC’s suitability to take Spurs forward, that again inspired optimism in N17.
Tottenham are currently 11th in the Premier League table. Coincidentally, that is also exactly where the Levy-ENIC ownership regime rank in the table of the league’s richest owners.
The ENIC regime – and Levy especially – have transformed Spurs over the last two-and-a-half decades in terms of their prestige and commercial standing.
While it justifiably went down like a cup of cold sick with fans, the fact Spurs were one of 12 invited to join the European Super League in 2021 was a testament to how they have broken into the financial elite.
Significantly, however, they have done so without winning any silverware since 2008.
And while the move to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2019 has yielded the increase in spending on recruitment and retention that was promised, the gap between their revenue and squad cost is widening.
