The Godfather of Football

The UK is indeed a country with a lot of humor, at least the media here is like that.

When they want to ridicule and humiliate a person or a football club, they often have endless creativity, the most typical of which is their cynicism towards Heskey.

However, recently, the British media have begun to ridicule a football club.

Last night I met a beautiful and wild girl, and she said to me: "You can humiliate me, humiliate me to your heart's content."

So, I bought a Tottenham jersey for her today!

A little boy went to a social shelter and told the people there that he was homeless.

"Don't you have a parent?" the social worker asked him.

"No, they beat me," the little boy said.

"What about your grandparents?" the social worker asked again.

"No, they'll hit you harder!"

The social worker was helpless, "Okay, tell me, where do you want to live?"

"Tottenham!" The little boy seemed to be prepared and replied confidently, "No one can beat anyone there!"

The city council rejected Tottenham Hotspur's plan to build a new stadium at Northumberland Park, with a spokesman saying: "We don't mind having a carnival here every year, but seeing circus clowns once a week The performance is a bit overwhelming!”

BBC TV special report, "There is news that Tesco is removing OXO cans, a daily staple food for British people, from the shelves because consumers complained that it has become a laughing stock because it has the same color shell as Tottenham Hotspur. ”

"After receiving the news, OXO can company held an emergency special meeting and decided to modify the can shell packaging. From now on, the shell color of OXO cans will become the color of Arsenal!"

I believe everyone can realize after reading the above jokes that they are talking about the North London team Tottenham Hotspur.

This team was once a well-known and powerful team in England's top league, and even had the opportunity to be associated with wealthy clubs. It was also once regarded as the representative flag of English artistic football, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Just like its name, the lane stadium plays romantic and poetic football and once occupied the third place in the league.

At that time, people were full of hope for him to return to the top.

Many people say that it is a miracle that Kaiserslautern won the top league championship with a newly promoted team. If it is a miracle that Kaiserslautern won the top league championship with a newly promoted team, then Tottenham Hotspur had already created this miracle 50 years ago.

In the 1949/50 season, Tottenham Hotspur returned to English League One as the League Two champions. In the 50/51 season, they defeated the then Red Devils Manchester United and won the miracle of the newly promoted team winning the championship. Not only that, the then boss Coach Rowe also invented a set of passing and running tactics. This set of tactics has now spread all over the world, and almost all teams' tactics are based on this.

But after experiencing the peak, Tottenham Hotspur quickly sank.

Tottenham have always left the impression in English football that they dare to be the first to try something new, such as going public.

The listing of Tottenham Hotspur dates back to the 1980s. At that time, the Football Association had strict regulations on the team. Managers could only receive 5% of the club's profits as personal bonuses and were not allowed to receive wages. After the club closed down , the property must not be sold and must be given to other local football clubs.

But at that time, Ervin Scholer, a real estate developer from the casino city of Monte Carlo, took a fancy to Tottenham. He successfully became the new owner of Tottenham in 1982 by privately acquiring the club's internal bonds, but he also inherited With a huge debt of more than 1 million pounds, he boldly chose to transform the club into a joint-stock company and successfully applied for listing in 1983.

A full eight years after Tottenham went public, in 1991, Manchester United followed suit.

There was a saying circulating in English football at that time. Scholer said to the then club coach Birkinshaw, "From now on you will be an ordinary employee of Tottenham PLC." It was this sentence that made Birkinshaw play in the UEFA Cup. The night before the final, he announced his resignation and left Tottenham Hotspur.

Scholer caused a lot of anger at Tottenham. The most angry thing among the fans was that he demolished the famous West Stand. Coupled with the team's poor performance in the following years, the fans were increasingly dissatisfied with him. .

At this time, Tottenham ushered in an even worse combination. The new chairman was Alan Sugar, a German businessman who dealt in electronic products, and Alan Sugar's partner was Venables, the famous British coach at the time. , the two partnered to buy Tottenham Hotspur from Ervin Scholer, but Sugar paid for it with money, while Venables became a free hand and invested in technology.

Anyone who is familiar with Venables knows very well that his career in English football is full of a series of unknown scandals and farces, and his coaching career has always been accompanied by black gold and controversy.

As Alan Sugar, who was born on the street, and Venables, who regarded Alan Sugar as a fat sheep and Tottenham as a tool to make money, the combination of the two set the stage for tragedy from the beginning. Sugar bought Venables's shares and told him to get out, but Sugar himself was in an embarrassing situation.

It was in this situation that in the late 1990s, the ENIC consortium appeared in front of Alan Sugar, bought part of his Tottenham shares, and successfully increased its holdings in Tottenham to 29.9%.

This is a very interesting number, because the UK stipulates that if it reaches 30%, it must forcibly acquire all trading shares on the market, and this consortium also owns shares in many football clubs such as Glasgow Rangers in Scotland, Vicenza in Italy, Basel in Switzerland, AEK Athens in Greece, and Slavia Prague in the Czech Republic. It was even once targeted by UEFA because AEK Athens and Basel entered the Champions League group stage at the same time, and Glasgow Rangers and Slavia Prague entered the League Cup at the same time.

As soon as the European Court of Justice issued a ruling, although the team in which ENIC held shares continued to participate in the competition, the stock price of ENIC plummeted by 40%, forcing the company to temporarily pause its desire to continue to expand its holdings in Tottenham.

It was not until recent years that ENIC gradually expanded its holdings in Tottenham, and currently holds 54% of its shares in Tottenham.

However, don't expect Joe Lewis and Danny Levy to really want to run Tottenham Hotspur. The former started out as a scalper and has always regarded football as a business. The purpose of holding so many clubs is just to make money. Danny Levy is a fan of Tottenham Hotspur, but he is also a stockbroker and came to Tottenham Hotspur for the purpose of business.

So, for them, Tottenham Hotspur is not a non-saleable item. The key is to see how much you bid.

In fact, even if Tottenham Hotspur has a good performance this season, Levy has changed the head coach every year since he took office. Not only the fans are dissatisfied, but even the shareholders are very dissatisfied with this. It's just that they are the number one shareholders and others can't do anything to them.

Although ENIC and Levy's performance at the football level is not satisfactory, in terms of club management, the team's financial situation is still quite good, because they are almost a very rare club without debt among all Premier League teams, and their financial situation is very healthy.

This is undoubtedly in line with Ye Qiu's taste, because he is unwilling to spend so much money to repay debts after purchasing a football club. Isn't this a rich man?

Of course, it doesn't mean that Ye Qiu can rest assured after acquiring Tottenham Hotspur.

Tottenham's White Hart Lane Stadium is old. Whether in terms of capacity, facilities, or even management, it is far behind the pace of the times. If Tottenham is acquired, the construction of a new stadium must be put on the agenda, which requires a considerable investment.

Of course, although Tottenham's current lineup is not bad, in fact, if Tottenham wants to compete for a Champions League seat, it at least needs to strengthen the team's strength, which requires transfer funds.

So, the 400 million euros on hand by Ye Qiu seems to be a lot, but in fact, it is very tight when it is shared.

Because of this, after returning to London from the United States, Ye Qiu has been deliberately keeping a low profile. He first secretly contacted ENIC and used Eliza and her connections to contact Joe Lewis and Danny Levy to discuss the possibility of acquisition.

After more than a month of contact and investigation, Ye Qiu got the real intelligence and clues of Tottenham Hotspur, and gradually conducted in-depth negotiations with ENIC. Finally, after getting the other party's approval to sit down and talk, Ye Qiu took Eliza all the way to Tottenham.

The traffic around White Hart Lane is not very convenient, but the residential areas in the surrounding areas are densely populated, and the population is very dense, and the people living in the surrounding areas are basically middle-class.

This has to talk about some anecdotes of Tottenham fans.

As we all know, Tottenham Hotspur has always been said to be a Jewish team, and the past few chairmen and owners, including the current Joe Lewis and Danny Levy, are all Jewish, so many people define Tottenham as a Jewish team, and even many Tottenham fans will play Jewish slogans in the stadium.

But this statement is not very convincing.

According to the official statement of the British government, there are 250,000 Jews in the UK, of which only about 3% are Tottenham fans, that is to say, even if all these fans come, there are only a few thousand people.

In fact, the area where Tottenham Hotspur used to be located was considered a wealthy area in London. Many wealthy Jews lived in this area. They supported the development of the team, so many Jews entered the management of Tottenham Hotspur. But later, with the changes in the urban area of ​​London, they had left Tottenham Hotspur.

This is why so many people say that real Tottenham Hotspur fans should be in Kensington and Chelsea, where the rich live now, and Tottenham Hotspur has now become a gathering place for the middle class.

Of course, there are still some wealthy areas, but not many.

As for the fact that the owner of Tottenham Hotspur is Jewish, this is indeed true, but if someone seriously does a statistics, it is not difficult to find that in fact, there are many Jews in the Premier League football world, Abramovich is also Jewish, and many shareholders of other clubs are Jews.

This is a very typical phenomenon, because Jews are often good at business and relatively rich, so even if you are in London, it is not uncommon to meet Jews in the upper class society all over Europe.

In recent years, many Tottenham fans even shouted [YIDARMY] in the stands. This used to mean the Jewish Army, but later, with the poor management of Jewish owners, it gradually turned into anti-Semitic meaning, because the word YID is generally recognized as a derogatory term for Jews.

The anti-Semitic here is not racial discrimination, but a resistance to Jewish owners, just like other fans shouting "XX get out", which means the same thing. This explanation has also been accepted by the English Football Association.

Ye Qiu drove north from downtown London. All he saw along the way were old British-style street-front row houses, with their parking lots on both sides of the road, leaving a road in the middle for two cars to cross.

This is a typical middle-class residential area in the UK, and the surrounding area is also the most densely populated area of ​​the middle class in London. From the north of downtown London to the Tottenham area, it is almost densely packed with middle-class residential areas, which can be seen from the cars on both sides of the road.

Arsenal's new stadium is located between White Hart Lane and downtown London. Their attendance rate is high. One of the important reasons is that the middle class living here is dense and can afford the ticket price of Arsenal. If it is in the poorer east and south, sorry, you can't even afford the ticket, what kind of game can you watch?

Ye Qiu chose Tottenham Hotspur for many reasons. First of all, the team he wants must be in a big city. If it can be London, that would be the best. If not, it must be a big city like Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham. In particular, the two teams in Birmingham, Birmingham and Aston Villa, have been in his consideration.

As for other teams in London, either they have been acquired, or they are heavily in debt, or they simply offer sky-high prices without sincerity. These have discouraged Ye Qiu, and Eliza also feels that staying in London can achieve great things, especially considering the 2012 London Olympics, which is undoubtedly a good opportunity for all London teams.

Moreover, after several symbolic contacts, ENIC actually does not reject the sale of the club's shares, because for them, running Tottenham Hotspur is really a headache. Even Levy, who has been in charge of Tottenham Hotspur until now, has fired a head coach a year, and the team's performance has hardly made much progress. This season's performance is good, but the goal is to qualify for the UEFA Cup.

This is the case with mid- and lower-level teams, with fluctuating results, just like Everton, which finished fourth last season and entered the European Champions League, but this team is fighting on two fronts this season, but the results in the Premier League have plummeted, directly falling to 14th in the league. It is still hard to say whether it can return to the forefront.

It can be seen that European competitions are not necessarily a good thing for small and medium-sized teams, because this will have very strict requirements on your team lineup. You must have a lineup that fights on two fronts to cope with so many games, and a large lineup means more expenses, greater salary pressure, and club finances are prone to problems.

Even for a healthy team like Tottenham Hotspur, the financial problems are still very obvious and the pressure is great, so they can't afford to buy stars, or even keep them.

Instead of doing this, it would be better to take advantage of someone taking over and sell the club at a high price to make a fortune.

Ye Qiu's appearance really surprised Joe Lewis and Danny Levy, because Ye Qiu was still coaching Chelsea a year ago, but just one year later, he wanted to swallow Tottenham Hotspur, a Premier League team, which really surprised and impressed them.

But obviously, they prefer to adopt a cooperative situation, with both parties maintaining a suitable share allocation. Ye Qiu will be the head coach of Tottenham Hotspur and also have the right to transfer the team, while Joe Lewis and Danny Levy's ENIC company is engaged in business planning behind the scenes.

Everyone knows that Ye Qiu's coaching ability is outstanding. If he coaches Tottenham Hotspur, the team's strength will rise steadily, and there may be a chance to enter the Champions League qualification zone. By then, the club's value will rise steadily, and the shares held will inevitably increase significantly.

But Ye Qiu has just jumped out of the wolf's den, how could he jump into the tiger's den again?

From the beginning of the contact between the two parties, Ye Qiu clearly rejected ENIC's proposal, saying that he only wanted to acquire and did not want to cooperate. If ENIC could accept Ye Qiu's acquisition terms, they could negotiate, but if they wanted to continue to insist on cooperation and refused to acquire, then Ye Qiu would look for other teams.

Joe Lewis did not like football. One of the important reasons why he acquired Tottenham was that several of his good friends were engaged in football, such as the two major Irish shareholders of Manchester United, but now they have sold their shares in Manchester United to the Glazer family because of the conflict with Ferguson. In addition, Tottenham was in an embarrassing situation, so Joe Lewis had already thought about withdrawing.

Although Danny Levy is a Tottenham fan, he holds a very low stake in ENIC. The real decision maker is Joe Lewis, so when Joe Lewis decided to negotiate with Ye Qiu, Danny Levy had no choice but to accept it.

So, Ye Qiu took Eliza to White Hart Lane.

Joe Lewis personally rushed back to London from the United States and sat in charge of the White Hart Lane Stadium. After Ye Qiu arrived at the White Hart Lane Stadium, Danny Levy personally went downstairs to welcome him and took Ye Qiu and Eliza to the administrative office on the second floor of the White Hart Lane Stadium to negotiate behind closed doors.

From the negotiation lineup arranged by ENIC, Ye Qiu and Eliza could feel how much they valued this negotiation, and they also saw their willingness to sell Tottenham shares, so the two sides did not have any extra greetings and courtesies, and went straight to the point.

What Ye Qiu did not expect was that Levy directly shouted out a shocking sky-high price from the beginning of the negotiation.

400 million euros!