Lifting All Ships
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club raised ticket prices for this season. Taking this action during a well-documented cost of living crisis is ballsy enough. But Tottenham have been teetering between poorly run and downright embarrassing for years (furloughing staff, the Gattuso fiasco, not knowing the international loan limit and having to terminate Matt Doherty’s contract.)
Even the signing of Manor Solomon was made on dicey ethical grounds. Because of the war being waged in Ukraine by Russia, Ukrainian clubs have found themselves in a tough spot with contracts. According to The Athletic, “FIFA ruled in May that all foreign players based in Ukraine or Russia would be able to suspend their contracts again for a further year. With Solomon’s contract suspended, his agreement with the Ukrainian club will lapse at the end of the year and he therefore will be able to join Tottenham for free.”
We, Spurs, were able to find away around a transfer fee because his suspended contract would run out. Them’s may be the rules but it feels awful unfair to a Shaktar side that have done nothing wrong aside from existing in a war zone of Russia’s making.
In an effort to smooth that public relations bogey, the clubs played yesterday’s friendly as a dedication to the people suffering in Ukraine, and funds were raised for Shaktar Social, the Ukrainian champion’s charitable foundation. How much was raised? We have no idea, but whatever it was, it was better than acting like the situation didn’t happen.
Which brings me back to the raising of ticket prices. The club should not be allowed to proceed, status quo, without acknowledging that people are angry. The fan advisory and the Tottenham Supporters Trust have both come out against this rise (the last 10 minutes of this week’s The View from the Lane go into the issue.) Yet the club forges forward.
What is that money being used for? Are staff going to be getting pay rises from the extra coin in the club coffers? Are we building a new video analysis room to help the men’s and women’s team identify talent? The point is we don’t know. They are probably just doing it because they hired a consultation company to tell them exactly how much they could exploit current ticket holders while not causing a major upheaval. And that’s the textbook definition of a broken society and relationship. When those with the money or power can do shitty things because there is nobody, really, to hold them to account.
So, if in sparsely read words only, I’m going to do just that. The club should ear mark each and every pound they take in from the new ticket prices and invest it straight into the women’s team. Staff, transfers, wages, etc. The women’s game is embarrassingly underfunded and our team is no exception. Daniel Levy even put his foot in his mouth on the subject within the last few months, claiming clubs don’t want to invest in women’s football and assume the risk of relegation.
Please.
Is this the same Daniel Levy who hired notoriously volatile, short term coaches in search of trophies with a stagnating squad? The same Daniel Levy who had to assume the risk of buying out each last manager’s contract and instilling the likes of Antonio Conte on 15 million quid a year, in the hopes that this time, finally, we could get it right? That sounds very much like assuming risk. But these owners and chairmen would like to think that their fans are too dull to notice, not only their hypocrisy but all that bullshit they shovel in front of our noses while calling it roses.
So on this issue, I’m not allowing it. It won’t change anything, I’m just a guy writing a newsletter to a couple hundred people, but I don’t care. Tottenham Hotspur’s board should pledge to us that every pound and pence raised off their fans backs will be reinvested into the women’s squad. It is, and I mean this, the very least they can do. Greedy people everywhere like to say that a rising tide lifts all ships. Well, prove it then. The women’s team is waiting.