Due to immediate lockdown that have caused too much trouble in our daily life as well in the business, Tottenham have borrowed £175m from the Bank of England to help them through and also as help to respond to the financial needs and funding of the necessities of the Covid-19 crisis.
With the big amount that have lost during the lockdown, the club is on worry that they could not get even profit more than £200m of revenue in the period from the start of lockdown to June 2021, that includes broadcast rebates, and they have sought help from the government’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility, which has provided them with the unsecured loan. The loans given will be used for expenses. Indeed, it is repayable in full next April at a rate of 0.5%, which is low in commercial terms, although Spurs could redraw it for another year. The rebate from the loans will not be spent for development of the club. This speaks frugality and practicality.
And with that monetary insufficiency, José Mourinho has stated that the club are “not going to spend rivers of money” in the next transfer windows when things will be back to its normal track, and the bank loan will not be used for new players instead, rather to provide flexibility and support during what will be a hugely testing time amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
As mentioned, Mourinho was briefed from the beginning when he joined last November that there would not be a bunch of crispy cash for a January squad overhaul; the manager was allowed to sign Steven Bergwijn for £25.4m and this was offset by Christian Eriksen’s £16.9m departure to Internazionale. Mourinho’s eyes were wide open as to the financial realities at the club and the situation is even more straitened now.
Spurs have undergone monetary downfall just like other businesses and franchises and hit by the pandemic big time because they had banked on revenue streams from fans attending various events at their stadium and does include and not only football matches aired. And with that, they have decided that they have had to cancel a rugby union game between Saracens and Harlequins, Anthony Joshua’s world title fight against Kubrat Pulev, two NFL fixtures and England versus Australia in the rugby league Ashes. Several concerts and events from Guns N’Roses and Lady Gaga and the Capital Radio Summertime Ball have also got cancelled.
The club have emphasized in a statement that “as of today, it is unclear when there will be a return to spectator-attended live events”, and Daniel Levy is eager to look for more feasible and accessible technological solutions that could help fans to come back and have fun at the stadium.
The chairman said: “We have always run this club on a self-sustaining commercial basis. I said as early as 18 March that, in all my 20 years at the club, there have been many hurdles along the way but none of this magnitude – the Covid-19 pandemic has shown itself to be the most serious of them all.
“It is imperative that we now all work together – scientists, technologists, the government and the live events sector – to find a safe way to bring spectators back to sport and entertainment venues. Collectively we have the ability to support the development of new technologies to make this possible and to once again experience the passion of fans at live events.”
Last September, the Spurs have announced that they have to look again to their financial matters at their stadium loans. Consequently, they have borrowed £637m from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC for the £1bn project and the money was due to be repaid by April 2022. But through US investors Levy converted roughly £525m of the debt into a bond scheme, with staggered maturities of between 15 and 30 years. This entails a bunch of money to look forward with.
On the flip side, Levy have released a statement that Spurs’ accounts for last season at the start of the coronavirus crisis, which showed total revenues of £460.7m and robust post-tax profits of £68.6m.
