Its The Chairmans 80th Birthday - How Are Spurs Looking?

The date is February 8th 2042 and the Chairman Of The Tottenham Football & Entertainment Ltd shuffles around his office at the stadium he personally built back in the 2010's to open the blinds and see how the preparation for the latest mega event is going. He then shuffles back to his desk where he slumps into his vast leather executive chair.

Today is his 80th birthday. His children have had an enormous cake box delivered to the office for him this morning. The pride he felt as he opened it and realised his kids have taken on board everything he'd ever taught them (promise the world but ultimately disappoint) as it contained only a lonely looking cupcake, gave him a warm fatherly glow. 

Far below him down on the pitch men and machines scurried about building a stage at what people used to call 'The North Stand' end of the complex, all in preparation for the fifteen night run of Taylor Swifts 'I Can't Believe I'm Still Doing This Either' World Tour. The American singer is now the second richest person on the planet after US President Musk* who was re-elected yet again last year with a pretty conclusive 99.8% of the vote.

However, there was almost an enormous spanner thrown in the works when the fifth round FA Cup draw paired The Tottenham Soccer Whites at home to Arsenal in what would be the first North London Derby for a decade. Right in the middle of the fifteen night concert run. As luck would have it though, through previous property dealings years back over the Whitewebbs Golf Course project the Chairman has a very good relationship with Enfield Council so the game has been switched to the Queen Elizabeth Stadium at Donkey Lane, Enfield. You can't have the football getting in the way of the important stuff.

The Tottenham Soccer Whites are currently playing in the fourth tier of English football. This was brought about by the scandalous behaviour of the other 91 professional clubs who insisted on signing players to either improve and at least to keep their teams on an even keel. They refused to sell players to Tottenham at low prices and eventually refused to pay over the odds for players Tottenham didn't want anymore. This reluctance to sign anyone and keep players well passed their best eventually resulted in three relegations in a ten year period. Plus of course those bastards at The Premier League refused to award extra points for obtaining 90% occupancy levels at the onsite hotel or the reaching of the milestone of 50,000 people paying to do the Skywalk.

Of course the advantage of being in the fourth tier is that you don't have to pay the players anywhere near as much as when they played higher up. Tottenham now not only has the lowest wage to turnover ratio in English football, they have the lowest wage to turnover ratio in corporate history. A quite remarkable achievement considering the Chairman is still the highest paid in England. The Chairman's Boss, the 105 year old Joe Lewis still lives on his boat in the Bahamas but was cryogenically frozen in 2032 for tax purposes. Despite this he currently makes as many public statements than he did back in the 2010's and 2020's.

The only investment ENIC have made for years in what was originally called the 'football' side of the business was in DNA-ReGen technology. Scientists discovered they were able to re-create players from the past and the Chairman saw this as a great area for potential growth. After an initial investment in 2033 of just £20m for the exclusive rights, three years ago he paid an additional sum of just £100,000 for the first ever ReGen, a 21 year old Harry Kane. Unfortunately, some rogue Arsenal fans angry at the fact that the Kroenke's have only spent £120 billion on players since 2035 in an attempt to win the League, broke into the laboratory and infected the Kane ReGen with DNA taken from Grzegorz Rasiak. 

The good news is the programme has improved since the early days. Tottenhams current back four consists of Steve Perryman, Chris Hughton, Jan Vertonghen & Ledley King. ReGens aren't anywhere near the quality of the original player but like the replicants in the movie 'Bladerunner' they don't need paying either. Result.

Because there's a ReGen of Son-Heung Min in the team, the owners have managed to keep the money spinning stream of charter flights direct from South Korea going. All facilitated by 'Tottenham Air' ENIC's own in house airline** of course. For example, last weeks 3-2 home defeat to Cheltenham Town (Tottenham were 2 up at half-time by the way) was played out in front of 62,000 people, 99.3% of whom came in on flights from Seoul and paid £5000 per match ticket on top of the cost of their travel. Profit.  The other 0.7% was made up of away fans and members of the media who still turn up because they cannot believe what the fuck is going on.

There have been many offers over the years for the club, at least while they were still in the Premier League anyway. The trouble was that the investors or potential new owners always wanted to run the club and make decisions on transfers and stuff like that. Its a well known fact that nobody could ever hope to do that as well as the Chairman so in the end potential suitors just gave up. 

The Chairmans birthday thoughts were interupted by a knock on the office door.

"Enter."

The door opened and in walked Paul Coyte, the popular matchday announcer and DJ once inexplicably sacked by the club only to be brought back after calls of disgust from the support base. Obviously its not the real Paul Coyte but a ReGen Paul Coyte. Like the players he's not as good as the real one but being as over 99% of the crowd are South Korean all he has to do is read the teams out and play K-Pop classics.

"What do you want, Coyte?"

"I'm here to do the the Q & A for your birthday message to go out on our Social Media sites, Mr Chairman." 

"You look tired Coyte. Its only 8am, whats the matter for Godsake?"

"I only finished sweeping up the stands after the Cheltenham game at 3am this morning Mr Chairman. Is there any chance you could get me some help?"

"You may be in luck Coyte. I overspent on last months ReGen budget by accident. I meant to order a new Moussa Dembele but attached the wrong specification to the email and we got Tanguy Ndombele instead. You saw him on Saturday, bloody awful, it was like history repeating itself."

"Ah OK. So I'll have Tanguy helping me clear up next time?"

"Oh no, you'll get the absolute budget ReGen, the one arriving this month. Funds were so bad I was really scraping the barrel."

"Crikey, who is it?"

"Jamie O'Hara."

"Good God, things really are that bad."

"Yes, look, sit down and lets get started. I'm very busy."

The following is the transcript of that interview:

PC: Mr Chairman: You've been in charge of our amazing limited company since 2001. What are your memories of the take over?

DL: Well at the time UEFA had a rule that you could only own shares in one club if they played in European competition so we had to sell our shares in the other four clubs we had interests in before we could confirm the purchase

PC: Er...anything else?

DL: Oh sorry, you mean on the football side? We decided early on we had to get the customers.........

PC: Supporters Mr Chairman

DL: Sorry supporters onside so we decided to sack the manager and replace him with a club legend. 

PC: Glenn Hoddle you mean?

DL: Well yes. Was it Hoddle or Waddle? I always got those two mixed up. Anyway, I wanted somebody who was out of work so there'd be no compensation to pay but we couldn't find anyone suitable. If I remember rightly he was Northampton manager at the time.

PC: It was Southampton, Mr Chairman.

DL: Well quite. We wanted to start as we meant to go on. 

PC (Under his breath): ....by losing an FA Cup Semi-Final...

DL: Sorry Coyte, what was that?

PC: Sorry, moving swiftly on, who's been your favourite ever player?

DL: Thats an easy one, Harry Kane, the way he made the net bulge.

PC: Great choice, 280 goals for Spurs, our record scorer, magic.

DL: Oh really? Thats nice for him. I meant the way he made the net profit bulge for the season 23-24. What I remember is him being an academy product. Sold him for nearly £100m when that was a lot of money and not the cost of a three bed terraced house in London. See what we do is spread the cost of the academy by the number of units trained in each year group thereby meaning that Kane....

(PC begins to nod off)

DL...Coyte, wake up! This is important. Now where was I, yes, meaning that Kane actually cost us about £13.76. Nearly 100% pure profit. Thats how to run a football club. Trophies? Huh...

PC: Er Mr Chairman, please, sticking with the football, over the four decades have you had a favourite goal?

DL: Of course I have. To make as much money as possible without investing any of my own. And if I may say so, I've done a bloody good job of it.

PC: OK...Some great creators have played here, has there been any particular pass that sticks in your mind?

DL: Without doubt. Its up there.

(He points at the wall)

DL: Look I had it framed. Backstage VIP from when The Rolling Stones played here a couple of years ago on their 'We Can't Believe We're Still Doing This' Tour. Twenty-five consecutive sell out nights. Before these Taylor whatsit ones it was the biggest grossing concert run in British music history. And the Megastore sold over £3m worth of Sanatogen in that accounting period.

PC: Well whatever...have you any regrets, something that wish you'd done differently?

DL: Yes, not signing Jack Grealish. Aston Villa were in the shit financially and he was desperate to join us. We went in with our usual opening offer of £2500, a voucher for a Stadium Tour for a family of four and my wife's recipe for ratatouille. Bloody Villa wouldn't budge. Not even on the ratatouille. They wanted £25m. We were never paying that.

PC: At the time though serious clubs were paying twice that for full backs. He would have been a bargain.

DL: I know that. Two years later City paid over £100m for him. We missed out on £75m in profit, probably more because I'm such a great negotiator I'd have got a better price.

PC: Umm..yes...next, how do you think we'll measure up in the upcoming clash with Arsenal?

DL: Well Josh Kroenke rang up after the draw to congratulate me on our latest P&L statement so I'd say we'll be fine.

PC: Lastly Mr Chairman, whats your message for the clubs supporters?

DL: Supporters? Oh you mean customers, I'm sorry Coyte I don't speak Korean.

PC: Its OK, it'll be translated.

DL: Oh yes, I forgot, I have something preprepared. 

(DL looks at the screen of his laptop)

DL: I'd like to thank you all for your continued custom. If you could see your way to just spending a little bit more each in the Megastore on your next visit because average spend per match ticket is only up this season by 3% and thats less than underlying inflation. Perhaps you could have two meals in the ground instead of one, or buy an extra pint of our exclusive new Craft Ale 'Trophy Drought' which is brewed on site. It would be greatly appreciated. 

DL: Hold on Coyte there's something else.

(DL reads from a piece of paper on his desk)

DL: And my Birthday gift to you all is that on all flights on Tottenham Air to the next home game, executive ticket holders will be entitled to a free, thats right free soft drink with each inflight meal. Although we will recoup the cost of those drinks by adding it to the cost of the match ticket.....oh sod it I wasn't meant to read that last bit out. You'll have to edit that bit Coyte....Coyte wake up!!

*Under the current US Constitution Elon Musk could not become President due to being born in South Africa. I'm assuming Trump will change that to allow his annointed sucessor to take over.

**The start-up costs for Tottenham Air were raised in 2028 by the sale of Archie Gray to The Sultan Of Brunei.