Daniel Levy is an English businessman and the Tottenham Hotspur owner. He is the longest-serving chairman in the Premier League as he bought the club back in 2001. Levy and his family own 29.4% of the share capital of ENIC International Limited, which is the company that owns 85.55% of the issued share capital of the Premier League club - Tottenham Hotspur.
Daniel Philip Levy was born in 1962 in the English town Essex. He comes from a middle-class family to become one of the richest English businessmen along with Ed Woodward, who is the current chief executive of Manchester United with a net worth of £10 Million.
Levy studied Economics and Land Economy at Cambridge University and graduated from there with a First Class Honours Degree.
Levy formed a business association with Joe Lewis and became involved in an investment trust called ENIC International Ltd.
After a couple of failed attempts to buy Spurs, the first in 1998 and the second in 2000, finally in 2001 Levy took major control of the club after purchasing the shares from Alan Sugar.
Being a chairman is not an easy task and the Englishman proved that he is one of the best at it. He managed to change Spurs and make them unrecognizable.
The first years since the Englishman took charge were not as good as he expected. There was no improvement on the pitch, the managers come and go and Spurs still finished in the mid-table.
After six years, Levy finally appointed a manager who managed to win something. In 2007 Levy sacked Martin Jol and replaced him with the Spanish coach Juande Ramos.
Under his management, Tottenham defeated Chelsea to win the League Cup in 2008. However, it was not until 2009/10 that Spurs made their breakthrough into Europe’s elite. The club finished in the 4th position of the Premier League table and qualified for the Champions League. Since then Spurs has not finished outside the Premier League’s top six.
In 2014 Levy made the best hiring since he took charge back in 2001. He appointed Mauricio Pochettino, who helped Tottenham to be regular in the top-four and even led them into their first Champions League final last season.
It is no secret that Daniel Levi is a great businessman, he owns 29.4% of the share capital of ENIC, which holds 85.55% of the total issued share capital of Tottenham. With the new stadium, Levy's revenue is even higher.
Daniel Levy is one of the richest chairmen in the Premier League alongside, Stan Kroenke and Roman Abramovich.
Daniel Levy's net worth is estimated to be over £1billion, according to Forbes. Levy is known as one of the most astute negotiators in the Premier League. He made deals that brought Spurs impressive revenue. The decision to sell Gareth Bale and Christian Eriksen might have sounded strange for some of the fans, as they were one of the club's best players, but those deals have brought millions of dollars for the club.
The club first manager that Daniel Levy appointed was Glenn Hoddle in 2001, but after a poor start to the 2003–04 season in September 2003, he was sacked.
Hoddle was followed in quick succession by Jacques Santini and Martin Jol. Jol had successes with the club, but he was released from his duties and Juande Ramos was hired.
Juande Ramos succeeded as Tottenham manager as we said earlier, he won the League Cup against Chelsea, but Levy decided to replace him with Harry Redknapp on 25 October 2008.
Andre Villas-Boas was in charge for some time, but eventually, he was sacked too.
The best success Levy had with Pochettino. The Argentine just changed the face of Tottenham, making them a top-class team, which was regular in the top-four of the Premier League table.
Eventually, he was sacked too in the 2019/20 season and was replaced by José Mourinho.
Tottenham is among the clubs with the lowest wage/revenue percentage. However, recently Deloitte Football Money League made a list of the top richest clubs of 2020, and surprisingly Tottenham is ahead of Chelsea and Arsenal.
It is known that Levy is the main negotiator when it comes to transfers. He is known to be very tough to negotiate with as the former Manchester United manager describe him as "more painful than my hip replacement". That description comes after United negotiated with Tottenham about the signing of the Bulgarian player Dimitar Berbatov.
Throughout the years, Tottenham had some top-class players. They had Gareth Bale, who was unstoppable when he played for them, but eventually, in 2013 Levy managed to negotiate a world record fee of €101.00m for the transfer of Bale to Real Madrid.
He also had some really good signing with Christian Eriksen, Son Heung-min and Dele Alli.
Undoubtedly, Levy’s biggest imprint on the club is the building of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The new stadium is built adjacent to the old White Hart Lane, and it's designed with a capacity of 62,062, making it the largest club stadium in London and the second largest in the country. That as you can imagine is a huge increase in revenue.
