Daniel Levy struggles to cash out of Tottenham Hotspur a year after his ouster

LONDON – Daniel Levy spent 25 years turning Tottenham Hotspur into one of the biggest football clubs in England before being ousted in a palace coup a year ago. The summer was supposed to bring catharsis: Over US$1 billion (S$1.28 billion) landing in his bank account to buy him out as a part owner of the London club.

Instead, the money so far has not arrived and Levy risks being slowly squeezed out as a shareholder. After gaining a reputation for canny deal-making, cashing out appears to be more complicated. 

Levy pinned his hopes on a purchase of his stake by a company called Eight Sports Capital, headed by Hong Kong businessman Wing Fai Ng. The deal could still go through any day, but people familiar with it say negotiations have stumbled.

Meanwhile, Levy’s stake in Spurs is being diluted. The club, valued at about US$4 billion by Football Benchmark, is owned by Levy and the family trust of British billionaire Joe Lewis through the investment firm ENIC. The Lewis family, which pushed Levy out of the club, injected another £120 million (S$204.8 million) into Spurs, Bloomberg reported last week. That added to the £200 million it invested over the past year.

Spurs are bottom of the English Premier League after revamping the playing squad over the summer, albeit only five games into the season. The club, though, was known for its stability off the pitch under Levy’s stewardship. The saga over the past 12 months has exposed again the complexities – and pitfalls – of club ownership as competing investors try to monetise the popularity of the world’s richest football league. 

In June, Eight Sports announced it had agreed to buy 24.99 per cent of ENIC shares owned by Levy. That would give the group around 22 per cent of Spurs because ENIC in total owns 88.3 per cent of Tottenham.

Eight Sports is backed by Richard Tsai, a Taiwanese businessman and chairman of Fubon Financial Holding, the people said. They asked not to be named discussing private information. Tsai is worth US$12.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Tsai was unreachable for comment on his mobile, and e-mails to Fubon went unanswered. Levy did not respond to requests for comment, though a person familiar with his thinking said he remains confident that the deal will be completed given that Tsai is behind it.

Ng declined to comment on the status of the talks. Spurs also declined to comment about the transaction, as did the Lewis family.

Lawyers on both sides have been locked in discussions over minutiae such as how to transfer the money, people familiar with the matter said. Ng has made regular promises to transfer it, but the payment has been delayed by complications, they said. In response, Levy has begun demanding Ng pay interest for the delay and has even asked for a private jet as part of it, one of the people said.

“The lack of clarity and transparency is confusing for fans, lenders and other stakeholders in Tottenham,” said Kieran Maguire, professor of football finance at Liverpool University. “It creates uncertainty, has an impact on budgets and can make it more difficult to attract players, if they don’t know who the ultimate owners are.”

For Levy, the longer the transaction drags on, the worse he could end up. After falling out with the Lewis family, Levy is no longer on Tottenham’s payroll. He has been asked to invest money in the football club to maintain his stake. 

The current deadlock is an unusual position for Levy to end up in. He established a name for himself as a shrewd operator through his prudent fiscal discipline and formidable bargaining tactics at Spurs. 

His tenure was marked by extracting premium sums when offloading talent, enforcing strict wage controls and growing commercial revenue. Most notably, he masterminded the development of the state-of-the-art Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to capitalise on non-match-day entertainment, from major concerts to National Football League games, a novelty among UK football clubs. 

After falling out with the Lewis family over how the club was being run, Levy has been looking to offload his stake. 

Even though he is not an avid football fan, Ng has long coveted Spurs, now seeing it as a valuable investment alongside Tsai. He previously tried to take control of the club in the aftermath of Levy’s ouster, but was rebuffed by the Lewis family. Ng turned his attention to Levy, now exiled from the club he helped build. 

Ng garnered a reputation as a banker at Salomon Smith Barney in Hong Kong. His big break was advising Tsai’s Fubon Financial in its strategic alliance with Citigroup in 2000. Ng went on to found or manage investment vehicles involved in high-stakes transactions, often involving Tsai, some of which were not completed.

In 2022, for example, Ng was appointed chief executive officer of AGBA Group Holding, a holding company controlled by Tsai. The following year, AGBA agreed to acquire the Singapore business of Sony Life Financial Advisers, though Sony terminated the deal in March 2025 due to non-completion.

AGBA later merged with Triller, a company that had grown from a 2015 AI music-video app into a major TikTok rival that at one point was valued at US$5 billion. It then flamed out, losing US$175 million in 2025 and embroiling Ng, as the group CEO, in lawsuits involving former top management.

Triller’s social media app has since been shuttered, and the company currently has a stock market value of just US$24 million. Ng has attempted to turn the firm into a sports and entertainment vehicle. Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship events are broadcast on TrillerTV.

Perhaps most gallingly for Levy, he could have already had cash in his pocket. 

Levy could still end up with US$1 billion for his work turning Spurs into one of the Premier League’s biggest revenue generating clubs. What he has received so far at least is his compensation package from Spurs for being removed from the club. At £27 million, it is one of the biggest in Premier League history. Spurs declined to comment.

What comes next now hangs in the balance. Eight Sports Capital had threatened to walk away from the deal after setting a mid-September deadline to get it done, people familiar with the matter said.

“Daniel Levy was often the most highly paid CEO during his tenure as he transformed the club into a multi-facility, multi-sport and entertainment complex, and his legacy would always be rewarded handsomely,” said Maguire, the academic in Liverpool. “He never let a player go cheaply, and he certainly won’t let himself go cheaply.” BLOOMBERG