The Tottenham name is on everyone's lips

It's a sellout. Tottenham have sold out Wembley for the opening UEFA Champions League group game against Monaco, which will beat the attendances achieved by Arsenal and set a new attendance record for our biggest ever crowd. Our fans were delighted at the ticker prices and have responded for which Daniel Levy is delighted. It all increases media awareness and puts the Tottenham Hotspur name in front to people.

“The response from our fans has been fantastic and is testament to just how big this football club is. This is going to be the best attended Champions League home game in Britain ever – what a way for us to mark our return to the competition.”


A football first business model means generating the income to compete on level terms with the financially richer teams. You can't pay top wages without generating the revenue to do so. Some it seems can't, or more accurately, don't want to grasp that fundamental.

Building a new stadium and new revenue streams is part of that as Sir Alex Ferguson recognised and has spoken about on many occasions. Still we have fans trying to suggest Sir Alex Ferguson is wrong when he says to achieve success on the pitch you have to achieve success off the pitch first. I think Sir Alex has a little more idea of what it takes myself.

Filling Wembley stadium puts our name on the lips of the media, building a state of the art new stadium does the same and is essential to build the Tottenham brand and thus build the income to invest in the football.

Our sustainability approach takes time to build, it has taken a long time to get the stadium off the ground with discussions over an NFL franchise. The suggested spend spend spend business model proposed by others is a model to keep Tottenham below the elite, as we simply don't have the business revenue to support their agenda. It is a model that will hold us back, a model that would not have allowed the stadium to be built. Football isn't building the stadium, business is, commercial revenue is, sponsorship is, partnership deals are.

You can't have one without the other. Where are Newcastle United, the next richest club after us? We finished third in the league and are in the Champions League thanks to our chairman, not because of him, as you all know.

Mauricio Pochettino asked for players, he got players, he insisted he wanted Sissoko when Isco decided to stay at Real Madrid and he got Sissoko. The chairman backed the manager again, but apparently that isn't putting football first