Joe Lewis may technically no longer be in control at Tottenham – but he will very much continue to pull the strings.
That is the view of finance expert Doctor Dan Plumley. speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the latest “headling-grabbing” developments behind the scenes at Spurs.
The ENIC group have owned 85 per cent of the club since buying Alan Sugar’s stake in 2001, and Lewis in turn owns close to 71 per cent of ENIC.
He has generally let co-owner and chairman Daniel Levy act as the public face of the club over the last two decades.
The North Londoners have now filed an update with Companies House on 16 October to confirm the cessation of Lewis as a person with significant control.
But, as Plumley explains, the move is internal housekeeping and the 85-year-old Bahamas-based Lewis will remain in charge, even if not in an official capacity.
“It’s headline-grabbing but when you scratch underneath the surface, it’s a restructure of the family trust,” the Sheffield Hallam University expert told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“This basically means he is still very much the owner and this is more of reshuffle within the family which then has links into the club.
“This might mean there is a long-term view on this for the future. But, of course, there will always be succession planning in terms of what happens when he is no longer with us, but that is further down the track.
“The day-to-day optics of it remain pretty much as they are. He has always been in the background, in the shaddows, but taking a really keen interest in the club.
“He does a lot of work behind the scenes that we won’t see. That is always the way it has worked, with Daniel Levy being the frontman. I don’t think much will change operationally at the moment.“