Daniel Levy has hit back against claims that he is too controlling at Tottenham Hotspur and gets too involved in the footballing decisions at the club.
Rightly or wrongly, the perception among a lot of Spurs fans is that Levy and ENIC have prioritised profit over on-pitch success.
Although Tottenham Hotspur have regularly competed at the top end of the table during Levy’s tenure as chairman and have reached a number of semifinals and finals, they have fallen short at the final hurdle time and again.
Many hold the Spurs chairman responsible for the club’s lack of success, with the charge being that Levy gets too involved in footballing decisions, which is not his area of expertise.
The Tottenham chairman has brought in many experts to run the footballing side of the club, from Damien Comoli to Franco Baldini, and more recently, the likes of Fabio Paratici and Johan Lange.
The Spurs chairman has now insisted that he does not play any part in the footballing decisions and that his role only starts when the footballing department decides that a certain player has to be sold or signed.
When asked about the criticism that he is too involved in the footballing side of Tottenham, Levy said on The Overlap: “I would say that is completely unfair. People who have worked in this club and understand the workings of the football side, I do not interfere at all in the decision-making of this player vs that player.
“It is always the coach, always the technical staff – the only thing I get involved in is when they decide which player they want to buy for instance or which player they want to sell; I will go out and do my very best for this football club. I’m not interfering in the football decisions.
“It’s no different from any other club – it’s not just me – it’s a board. When we went through the decision to appoint Thomas [Frank], there were several people involved in that decision – I was just one of them.”
Daniel Levy has hired some of the most highly-reputed directors of football and managers during his Tottenham tenure, and there is no chance they would have accepted the job if they were not given control over the footballing decisions.
Even this summer, it has been reported that Fabio Paratici wants to return to Spurs despite getting many offers across Europe. The Italian would not be keen on returning if Levy overrules him on footballing matters.
There are many things that the Spurs chairman can be legitimately criticised for. However, interfering in footballing decisions, especially when we have no evidence of that on the outside, is not one of them.
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