Daily Mail article on Spurs & Newcastle

yiddo

from todays Daily Mail

It always makes me laugh when people assume that the rich are somehow automatically more intelligent than the rest of us.
Over the years in various posts, I've been presented with the written thoughts of some of Britain's most celebrated businessmen. Had they submitted their misspelled, illiterate ramblings on any job application form I'd have thrown it in the bin without a second thought. Most rich people would not employ themselves. They did not make their money because they are geniuses, especially inventive or remotely creative (other than with the books). They did it by being in the right place at the right time, or knowing someone who was. Most are plain opportunists who approach business as they would a game of roulette, only in their case the right number came up. Of course they worked hard in the process, but many of you work hard too and you're not living on a yacht in Monaco.

One benefit of the credit crunch is that we can now dismantle this myth. We know that certifiable idiots run banks and characters with the morals of a benefit cheat often control multi-national consortiums and property empires.

But if you need further proof that rich people can be stupid, too, then examine the plight of Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. The St James' Park outfit can lay claim to being the most ineptly run football club in Europe. It's Mike Ashley's billionaire bonfire and he hasn't finished torching it yet. At almost every turn, this wealthy businessman has made staggeringly dumb decisions; from buying the club without knowing the extent of the debt, to running it like a social club, to his cack-handed announcement that he wants to get rid of it as soon as possible. It's as if he is reading from a manual on how not to run a football institution.
The only thing you can say with any confidence about this supposedly successful entrepreneur is there are bound to be more cash-burning catastrophes before he manages to offload the mess.

Yet, amazingly, there is someone out there with even more money who is doing even worse! Yes, another billionaire, and another recluse to boot, is presiding over what is shaping up to be one of the football disasters of the modern era. His name is Joe Lewis. He is 70, resides in the Bahamas and spends his days playing golf and clocking up the interest payments while his minions drive Tottenham Hotspur towards Premier League oblivion.

Having made such ignoble history, the directors should be ready to throw themselves off the East Stand. They will try to nudge someone else off instead, a deceit that may yet lead to the ritual slaughter of Juande Ramos, the coach they brought in to replace their last sacrificial offering, Martin Jol.

Spurs claim to be a club run by businessmen operating a so-called sophisticated commercial model. And yet they might as well be playing spin the bottle in the boardroom, such has been the quality of their decision-making.
They are a spectacular failure, a club that has carefully co-ordinated ways to stuff their own ambitions with all the prescience and foresight of a depressed lemming.

The chief lemming is Lewis's appointed executive Daniel Levy, a man with a First from Cambridge in Land Economy (basically, it's Geography plus Money), but now equipped with a Last in Football Economy, because whenever Spurs seem to be heading towards success, he somehow manages to steer them back towards the cliff edge. Spurs have made their worst start to a campaign in 96 years, which is one hell of a milestone. To put it into context, 1912 pre-dates the Wall Street Crash by 17 years and, as you will have heard by now, is the year the Titanic sank.

I am not being wise after the event. When it looked as if Jol's job was under threat last August, I wrote: 'What a shambles; what a mistake Spurs are making. If Jol is replaced this week I'd guess he will be out of work for minutes, he is that highly regarded.'

Jol is now sitting proudly on top of the German Bundesliga as the boss of a resurgent Hamburg while Spurs prop up the table here. And when the wind is blowing from the east, residents of north London might just be able to discern the sound of his laughter on the breeze.
Meanwhile, poor Ramos, still struggling to make himself understood in halting English, is unable to break out of a spiral of misery and remains beset by the work of catastrophic 'sporting director' Damien Comolli, a Levy appointment and his spy in the camp.

Those who meet Levy on a regular basis say he is personable enough. But there are rumours that he meddles in transfer deals when they appear to have been done and tries his hand at clever-dick brinkmanship only to be embarrassed when his bluff is called.

Levy's few chums have tried to claim Spurs are only in trouble because they were caught unaware by the departure of Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United and Robbie Keane to Liverpool.
Keane, perhaps. But to say Berbatov's departure was unforeseen is laughable. The Bulgarian has been leaving for, well, for ever. They had plenty of time to plan ahead.
Even then Tottenham had £50million in the bank, money they used to buy Roman Pavlyuchenko and Luka Modric. And they were happy to point at the profit on their balance sheet, until their League position started to look like the FTSE-100. So maybe this time it might be better if they finally fell off the cliff?

Tottenham fans won't agree right now but dropping out of the Premier League for a year could deliver the almighty shock the club needs.
It might clear the boardroom of all the smug pretenders and casino economists; the same men who knifed Jol because they thought they knew better, even though he was armed with the club's best managerial record for 20 years and delivered two fifth-place finishes in his first two full seasons. Fifth? They wanted fourth. And so they gambled again, only this time their number didn't come up.

I recall Newcastle being guilty of the same stupidity when they dispensed with Sir Bobby Robson in a desperate lunge for the next level. The clubs are two sides of the same coin. The men in charge cannot bear to trust the expertise of their own managers; they are so frightened of ceding control they impose their lieutenant on the process as a director of football; they buy and sell without the consent of the individual responsible for running the team and then hide when it all begins to implode.
Tottenham are basically Newcastle United with more accountants.

RichMc70

That about sums it up really.