This very week one year ago, Daniel Levy, Spurs Chairman, was taking a metaphorical victory lap of the new £1billion Tottenham Hotspur Stadium following its official opening. Twelve months later he has announced the club's non-playing staff will all be taking a pay cut or furloughed at taxpayers’ expense during football's indefinite coronavirus shutdown.
In a forthright statement on Tottenham's website, Levy said: "We need to realise that football cannot operate in a bubble."
Daniel Levy earned £7million last year. Star striker Harry Kane nets a reported weekly wage of £200,000. Jose Mourinho, appointed Spurs manager by Levy in November, is thought to receive an annual salary of £15million.
The top tier of English football has operated in an ever-expanding bubble since the country's top clubs - led by Spurs - broke away from their poorer relations to set up the Premier League in 1992.
Tottenham are not alone in furloughing some staff. Newcastle United, under the leadership of their billionaire owner Mike Ashley - fresh from apologising having argued that his Sports Direct stores remain open as an essential business - beat Spurs to the punch. Perhaps the message for those running football clubs should be Stay Home, Save Lives. Be Less Like Mike.
Doubtless, the decision by Spurs and Newcastle to furlough non-playing staff comes as a result of the Professional Footballers’ Association's advice that its members refuse wage cuts or deferrals. Players’ wages are every club's most considerable expense. For some clubs in the Premier League accounting for as much as 75% of turnover.
While the PFA's stance has drawn criticism, the majority of players it represents are those plying their trade in the lower leagues. These players are not earning vast fortunes. Contracts will often include appearance and performance bonuses which players can't achieve while there is no football to play.
Of course, those footballers earning millions a season have a part to play during this crisis, as do those earning similar sums in the entertainment and finance industries, but who are less visible targets. Once the PFA reaches agreement on measures appropriate for all its members, it is to be hoped that Premier League players step up, as have their counterparts at clubs like Bayern Munich and Barcelona.
But Premier League clubs should not be allowed to plead poverty on account of players' salaries. Long before coronavirus, Premier League salaries were immoral when compared to that of a nurse providing life-saving care. They will remain immoral long after the pandemic is over. It is the clubs who have willingly created football's never-ending arms race, lavishing players (and their agents) with ever more money to ensure their spot on the Premier League gravy train. As yet the 2019/20 season has not been cancelled. Clubs have not had to repay a proportion of the millions they've received from this season's record-breaking TV rights deal. Nor have they had to refund season ticket holders whose money they’ve already taken for games indefinitely postponed.
That, so far, only four top-flight clubs (Norwich and Bournemouth in addition to Spurs and Newcastle) have decided to furlough staff, points more to opportunism than dire need. Those clubs might argue they are a business like any other, making a sound commercial decision to safeguard their futures. But football trades on not being like any other business. Clubs love to be talked of as community assets, at the heart of the areas they inhabit, contributing to the local economy and employing local people. Those that pay to watch matches are encouraged to think of themselves as 'fans' rather than customers. There is even grandiose talk of a benevolent 'football family'. Witnessing Spurs, the club eighth on the world football rich list, furlough staff, those clubs living hand-to-mouth further down English football's pyramid should now be in no doubt. If coronavirus forces them towards the wall, Premier League big brother will not be coming to their rescue.
Towards the end of his statement, Daniel Levy reflects that "life will take some time to get back to normal" before stating his hope that "we never take for granted" watching Spurs play over a "beer and a pie" with our "family and friends". It may come as a shock to the likes of Levy and Ashley, who have shown their true colours, that increasingly a return to their normal is the last thing football fans want.