The Financial House vs The Soccer House

People thought that Liverpool paid way too much for a defender at £ 75 million, but that defender has just won the Player of the Year Award, that player has taken them to the brink of a league title with only Manchester City just about keeping their noses in front and that player has given them the favourites tag in the Champions League to lift that trophy, regardless that they are meeting Barcelona in the semi-final.

Spurs is a financial company that acts like a financial house.  Liverpool is a financial company that acts like a soccer house.  There is a difference in mentality.  The first question one should ask is why the cost overrun on the new stadium. The reason for that has nothing to do with soccer operations.  If anything it is was priority number one for the owners of Tottenham to strike a deal with the NFL.  That deal meant that the largest cost element to the new stadium was ensuring that there is a NLF pitch underneath the soccer pitch.  The soccer pitch can be withdrawn and NFL games can be played.

The financial house at Tottenham Hotspur care far less for Tottenham's prestigous history and more about the possibility of one day hosting an NFL team operating from London.  The Oakland Raiders, themselves a financial house that has bounced their franchise from Oakland to Los Angeles and then back to Oakland and now in a couple of years will move that franchise into a stadium that makes Tottenham's new ground look ordinary - as they plan another move, this time as the Las Vegas Raider.  Why not move to the money gambling capital of America, when Oakland Raiders are not really interested in serving their traditional fan base in Oakland - since there is more money to be made in Las Vegas.

Tottenham's owners are of the same ilk.  Today they lost the first leg of their semi-final to Ajax Amsterdam.  Ajax full of young players from their academy have been a factory farm for brilliant soccer players - and four of them are currently owned by Tottenham and played against them today in the 1-0 loss.  Ajax Amsterdam is a soccer house, even if their owners too are financial people.  The reality of soccer today is that it is dominated by financial interest that deal in the billions, but that does not mean that a soccer owner is necessarily looking at soccer operations as their cash cow.

Otherwise why be OK with a 1/2 Billion Pound cost overrun and still try to balance the books on soccer operations, even when Spurs made a record profit for a soccer club this year, by essentially spending none of that profit on new players.  So how does the Tottenham soccer house thrive under such ownership.  Credit can be given to those owners for creating a state of the art soccer stadium, but who was that stadium actually created for?  The biggest financial house in the league is Manchester United.  How is that working out for them?  Do we blame Manchester United supporters being so angry over the last few years because decisions are being made by financiers but they will have given 1/2 Billion pounds in transfer spending to Manchester United - compared to Tottenham's Zero Dollars.

The net result of that got us to the strange situation today where Ajax Amsterdam came in as the favourites, even though that team is essentially a lot of talented kids, who after this year will be sold to the big boys, two are already earmarked for Barcelona.  So we know soccer is generally a financial house but where is the eyes of those financiers?  Fulham is owned by an NLF owner and tried to buy the national stadium at Wembley Stadium for a million pounds.  The general pubic in England rose against the idea and the FA did not succumb to the offer.  Fulham did spent a 100 million pounds but money not spent wisely is money wasted and Fulham have lost their place in the Premier League.  That is what happens when the thinkers are operating from the Financial House rather than the Soccer House.

Today's 1-0 home defeat does not spell the end of the road for Tottenham's Champions League hopes, but a David Neres miss which hit the Tottenham post and came out should have sealed the deal for Ajax today.  It did not, and Spurs can come into Holland in a week's time with one of their two star strikers back.  So Spurs technically do still have a chance but why do they still have a chance.  The answer is in their manager.  The manager that Real Madrid and Manchester United really want - the manager that in the last five years has worked miracles with very little resource.  In the meantime the name of the ground is waiting to be sold to a corporate contract.  Maybe Nike, maybe someone else, but the stadium Tottenham play in will never be called White Hart Lane again.

The financial owners of Tottenham have made sure of that by giving the stadium a holding name of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.  They are trying to agree a name change for the train station which is called White Hart Lane, they want it to be renamed Tottenham Hotspur Train Station.  That is another way of losing the traditional link to Tottenham fans referring to their stadium as White Hart Lane.  That is what Financial House do and Spurs is not alone in the Premier League or in the European leagues as a financial house.  Yet at least those other Financial Houses gave their teams an opportunity for glory.  For Spurs that is the next chapter.  Are they still interested in football operations or are the owner of Tottenham going to be the next NFL franchise owners, were soccer happens to be played.  This is the reality of the world of financial football.  Today's 1-0 loss to Ajax may be redeemable because a stronger team will be available next week, just as Mousa Sissoko's introduction had a major effect in the way the team played today, but Spurs fans should wonder what sport the owners consider their financial nest egg and maybe soccer operations is now just another revenue line, with the big dream being hoped for is that NFL franchise coming to Tottenham one day or at least for a London named team.