Following his ENIC company’s takeover of Tottenham in 2001, Daniel Levy is the Premier League’s current longest serving chairman.
The businessman has overseen huge transformation at the club, taking them from a struggling midtable outfit on his arrival to one of the current top sides in the country.
A steady rise up the table and vast improvement in European competition has seen Spurs narrowly miss out on both the Premier League and Champions League.
Levy has also overseen the redevelopment of the club’s White Hart Lane home, transforming it into one of the most impressive arenas in global sport.
As a result, Tottenham have shot up the football money league with the latest Deliotte table placing them eighth with revenues totalling £459.3m.
All this has seen his own stock rise with Levy taking home £3million as bonus for the stadium completion, meaning a total £7million for the year and making him the highest paid executive in the division.
According to Forbes Levy’s total net worth is around $1 billion, which makes the news coming out of N17 this week all the more surprising.
Earlier in the week, Tottenham announced that 550 non-playing staff would be forced to take a 20% pay cut while football is suspended during the current Coronavirus crisis impacting the entire world.
In an official statement, Levy wrote: "Having already taken steps to reduce costs, we ourselves made the difficult decision – in order to protect jobs – to reduce the remuneration of all 550 non-playing directors and employees for April and May by 20% utilising, where appropriate, the Government’s furlough scheme."
Spurs, along with other Premier League clubs such as Liverpool, Bournemouth, Norwich and Newcastle have taken the decision to furlough their staff, meaning the government will pay 80% of their wages up to £2,500 a month.
Although Levy himself will also be affected, the move has drawn huge criticism from many quarters including former Lillywhites striker Gary Lineker.
"The way Tottenham have handled it I don’t think has been very good," said Lineker speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One. "What they are doing to their staff I don’t agree with whatsoever."
Local MP and Spurs fan David Lammy was critical of footballers for not agreeing to wage cuts whilst non-playing staff are furloughed but the Premier League have since announced that discussions are set to take place which could see players’ salaries reduced by 30%.
The club had earlier announced that they would allow the NHS to make use of their new 62,000 seater stadium during the ongoing crisis, including allowing the car park to be used for food storage.
Chairman Levy said: "As a club, we have always been clear about our commitment to the wider community - never has this been more important than it is now.
"We are immensely proud of the efforts of everybody involved in the fight against COVID-19 and see today as just the start of what we can do as a club to assist."
