Daniel Levy addresses controversial Tottenham season ticket decision fans called 'disgraceful'
Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has defended the decision to scrap new senior season tickets from next season, saying the club's "whole financing model will come into question" if they do not cut down on the number of concessions at the stadium.
In March, Spurs announced that no new senior concession season tickets would be made available from the 2025-26 season, while existing senior season ticket holders will see their 50 per cent discount drop by five per cent a year to 25 per cent in 2029-30.
The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust (THST) has urged Spurs to reverse its "disgraceful decision", while the club's Fan Advisory Board (FAB) unanimously opposed "any further removal or erosion of concessions and any ticket price increases" in their last meeting with the board in May.
The club argued at the time that “the number of senior concession season tickets has risen to four times the number at White Hart Lane”, an increase they say is “clearly not sustainable”.
Speaking at Tottenham's fan forum on Monday night, Levy insisted the decision to phase out senior tickets remained under review but suggested Spurs could not afford to keep subsisting older supporters.
"We announced a few months ago that we would do a review on the whole concession policy at the club," Levy said.
"We haven't stopped senior season tickets because this year we've actually increased the number of seniors. We met the FAB last week and we're going to form a working group.
"There's an underlying problem that as time goes on, if we don't curtail the number of concession seats in our stadium, our whole financing model will come into question. Because obviously we can't have a situation where our ticket revenue ends up falling.
"So it's a very complicated subject which we are going to review. But match-day concessions are still available, we're certainly not going to stop them. And we haven't said that we're stopping seniors. We've just said we'll put a pause on it at the moment."
Spurs also announced a six per cent rise in season ticket prices across the board in March. Levy was asked by fan-forum host Nihal Arthanayake if it was true that Spurs do not care about older fans.
"Absolutely not," the chairman said. "We have a duty to look at all fans. And we have to make sure we have enough space in the stadium to bring through new fans. So we have to somehow find a balance which is what we're going to engage with the FAB on and see what we can come up with."
Tottenham's revenue surpassed half-a-billion pounds for the first time for the 2022-23 season, with the club's total earnings up 24 per cent to £549.6million. The increase was due in part to non-football events at the club's stadium, including concerts and NFL games.
When it was put to Levy by a supporter that Spurs were in danger of becoming an entertainment brand first and a football club second, the chairman was unapologetic about hosting non-football events at the ground, insisting all revenues funnelled back into the men's and women's teams.
We're still a long way away from some of our biggest competitors and that's the gap we need to close
Daniel Levy
"I think that's just a lot of misinformation," Levy said.
"We just had a get together with our staff and there were perhaps 500 or 600 staff here. If you were to ask those staff, they understand what this is about. We're about providing the resources for our teams to win. And we don't make any apologies that we're trying to increase our revenue base so we can invest more in our teams.
"If that means we have the opportunity because of this great stadium to have concerts, that's great because we're giving it all to the teams. I don't apologise at all. I think it's good."
He added: "Last year we broke the £500m [revenue] mark which puts us in the league of the eighth largest club in the world by revenue. But we're still a long way away from some of our biggest competitors and that's the gap we need to close in order to give more resources to our football teams. And that's what we're working on."
Levy reiterated that Spurs are "in the market" for a minority investor as they seek to boost their spending power.
"We announced with our last results that we believe this club needs a bigger capital base because we've got a lot of exciting projects on the horizon and we want to make further investment in the teams," the chairman said.
"Some form of minority investment is what we're looking for. We've got nothing to announce at the moment but we are in the market."
