The six big issues facing Tottenham if they are relegated
The six big issues facing Tottenham if they are relegated
Sam WallaceSun, May 24, 2026 at 6:01 AM UTC
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Tottenham could be forced to sell their top players in the event of relegation to the Championship - Mike Egerton/PA
There will be a plan in a shared folder somewhere on Tottenham Hotspur’s executive network that the club will hope can be deleted next week with a shudder and a sense of relief. What Spurs do in the case of relegation from the Premier League today is such an all-encompassing question that there is no chance the club have not begun contingency planning.
Some industry estimates project that the Lewis Family Trust which controls 70.1 per cent of Enic, the company that owns 86.6 per cent of Spurs, face a capital injection into Spurs of around £300m in the event of relegation. All that rests on one outcome: Spurs losing today to Everton and West Ham winning at home to Leeds United. Never mind the Championship play-off final as the most financially transformative one-off game this weekend. It is the one taking place at the £1bn Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that has the potential to change the fortunes of a club by the greatest margins.
Financial hit
The golden egg is Premier League central disbursements – each club’s share of the pooled revenue of broadcast rights sales in Britain and around the world, as well as the collective commercial deals. Even finishing in 17th place last season, Spurs earned £127.8m from the Premier League. Last year’s lowest earners, Southampton, earned £109m. In the Championship next season, Spurs would earn less than half – around £56m – of which almost £50m would be parachute payments from the Premier League. There will be no European football for Spurs for at least the next two years in the event of relegation. This season, Spurs are likely to have earned around £80m for reaching the last 16 of the Champions League.
Costs outstripping revenue
The club’s net debt in its most recent financial results, published in March for the year ending June 30, was £831m, almost £60m up on last year. Its borrowing is long-term and relatively favourable, but still requires £30m annually in interest payments.
Spurs have an impressive new stadium but the costs of that do not change when it comes to turning on the lights or staffing, simply because one is playing in the Championship. Operating costs have been climbing across the Premier League and are currently at more than £200m at Spurs. The club have added almost £200m to their revenue since opening the stadium in 2019 but those earnings are being outstripped by greater costs.
The club also have £243m of net transfer debt as of those June 2025 results, and that will have climbed since then. Unlike the stadium debt there is much less to show for that investment and it has climbed considerably with spending in recent years under the family trust. So many of those players have badly underperformed.
Commercial concerns
What contractual rights do the likes of AIA and Kraken have to claw back payments on the deals they signed with a Premier League club that, in the doomsday scenario, would become a Championship club overnight? This will be the insurance giant AIA’s last season as the front-of-shirt sponsor and so, ideally, Spurs would already have secured a new deal for 2027-28, but that will not be simple either. Many clubs have relegation clauses with sponsors. Whether Spurs do or not, it is clear neither party is getting what they hoped for.
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Spurs are one of a few in the wealthy elite of the Premier League who do not rely on the Premier League disbursements for more than half of their annual revenue. Their ticketing income of £106m in the June 2025 year-ending results is a crucial part of that. Put simply, they would not be able to charge the same for Preston North End at home as they can for Manchester United. Spurs have frozen season ticket prices for 2026-27 in the wake of the protests over the removal of concessions for senior citizens. But in the event of relegation a price freeze looks hopeful. Prices would have to come down.
Player sales
Spurs fans can console themselves that at least there are not many players they like very much. A greater chasm between supporters and players it is hard to recall. Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven are the most obvious cash-generating departures among those in the mid-20s, career-prime category, followed by the likes of Pedro Porro, Rodrigo Bentancur, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski. The last three have suffered injuries this season that will affect values. Naturally it will be the younger players like Archie Gray that others will wish to pick off and Spurs would ideally prefer to keep.
Club captain Cristian Romero could be sold to ease the impact of relegation to the second tier of English football - George Wood/Getty Images
Selling players is a staple of any relegation. A well-organised club with contingency planning will always have good assets in the squad through whom it can generate cash in the event of relegation. A couple of good sales can go a long way to closing the gap in the revenue shortfall. But there has never been a relegation like the one facing Spurs – the numbers are just so great.
Spurs have valuable players who could be sold and their turnover will dwarf Championship rivals. In theory promotion should be straightforward, but the Championship is unpredictable. Spurs will require methodical squad planning for a tricky three-year period. First to generate cash in the event of relegation, then to dominate the Championship, and eventually to build a team that is first capable of staying in the Premier League – if and when Spurs return.
Will the club be sold?
The Lewis Family Trust has always maintained in public that it is a long-term investor in Spurs – since the descendants of patriarch Joe Lewis took control from long-serving chairman Daniel Levy in September. Many say otherwise. The club has cost the family more than £200m in the last four years alone in capital injections. The public scrutiny it has focused on them has been relentless. Ideally, they would be the distant owners bathing in the reflected glory of a well-run London operation. The opposite has been the case.
Joe Lewis acquired a majority stake in Tottenham in 2001 - Matthew Ashton/Getty Images
The Florida-based executive Nick Beucher, married to Joanna, daughter of Vivienne Lewis, daughter of Joe, is the family’s key point of contact for the club. All decisions must flow through him and the likelihood is a major change in the London executive team at the end of the season. It feels inconceivable that Spurs would be sold while outside the Premier League, but it is a lot easier to imagine that outcome once they return.
The manager’s future
Is Roberto De Zerbi staying? “Yes, I confirm everything,” he said on Friday. “For me, it’s still an honour to be a coach for Tottenham, even if on Sunday we play for the relegation fight, it’s not a problem. I consider football something more than the table, than the level of the game.”
No one can doubt his good intentions, but equally no one truly knows the ramifications of relegation at Spurs until it potentially bites. Even from this position, it is hard for De Zerbi, or anyone else, to envisage what exactly he is signing up to.
Source: “AOL Money”
