Daniel Levy has been with English football side, Tottenham Hotspur, for over two decades. He has been the chairman of the club. He hasn't been the fans favourite for the majority of his run. There have been calls for him to leave. Unsurprising, those calls have fallen on deaf ears.
That has changed in the past couple of days. He has officially left his role.
The north London club announced on Thursday that Levy has stepped down from his role after nearly 25 years in the position.
Spurs fans had protested against the running of the club amid just two trophies being won in the Levy era. This is despite the club reaching the Champions League final in 2019 and having world-class options across the board.
Tottenham's effective owners, Joe Lewis and his family, feel that the time is right for a change.
They will be hugely grateful for the relentless hard work Daniel Levy has done to turn Tottenham into one of the richest and best-run clubs in the world, but they want more sustained success on the pitch.
A return of only two trophies in almost 25 years is simply not good enough for a club as big as Tottenham. Chelsea, for example, have won 20 major trophies during the same period of time.
Of course, Chelsea's success is owed a lot to the financial backing of Roman Abramovich and Tottenham have operated under a different ownership model but at the end of the day; fans want glory, they want trophies and exciting football and many simply don't care about balance sheets and the bottom line.
This has turned into a year of big changes at Tottenham on and off the pitch. Since management consultants were brought in, executive director, Donna-Maria Cullen and Levy have left and Vinai Venkatesham has been appointed chief executive and Peter Charrington has become the new non-executive chairman.
When it comes to corporate governance, the best practice is to have a separate chairman and chief executive. Levy fulfilled both roles until Venkatesham, who previously worked at Arsenal, was appointed in April this year.
Tottenham's owners want to move in a new direction so it makes sense for them to put in a new leadership team.
Levy has been so closely involved with the day-to-day running of the club that it has always been assumed that he wouldn't leave unless the club was sold. With hindsight, perhaps the writing was on the wall, when it was announced that Cullen - who worked extremely closely with Levy - was leaving and Venkatesham was becoming CEO.
Tottenham's official statement - understandably given everything he has done for the club - said Levy had "stepped down." Perhaps, it would've been more accurate to say he had been asked to step down but that would have been disrespectful to a man who has dedicated so much of his working life to the club.
Venkatesham has since written to Tottenham's staff to tell them it is going to be business as usual. However, it is also clear that there is going to be more emphasis than ever on delivering success on the pitch.
Tottenham's owners want, "more wins more often" and see this as, "a new era for the club." The pressure is now on Venkatesham to deliver.
Tottenham's statement made clear how grateful they are to Levy for everything he has done, while at the same time emphasising that the transition to a new leadership team would be seamless due to their succession planning.
It will be music to the ears of Tottenham fans that the club will be set up to deliver long-term sporting success. However, that is easier said than done. Spurs, it has been insisted, will no longer be so much about business. They’re going to be about, "sustained sporting success."
This was the primary reason that the Tavistock Group, under the ownership of the Lewis family, took the decision out of Levy’s hands. They wanted change. There had also been an awareness of fan unrest. Vivienne Lewis, one of the younger generation heading up the Lewis Family Trust, is now seen as an influential figure.
"Business" in short, will not be the same again – and the impact may reach beyond Spurs.
The longest-serving chairman in the Premier League and a central figure in its political and economic structures, is gone. That is more consequential than it sounds. Many of the most senior executives in football, some who would consider themselves friends of Levy, were stunned.
Multiple such sources spoke of how they’d heard of growing tension at the top level of Spurs, that had been bubbling away for years between Levy and previous owner, Joe Lewis. A lingering tension came across loud and clear in a statement given by the family.
"Generations of the Lewis family support this special football club and they want what the fans want – more wins more often. This is why you have seen recent changes, new leadership and a fresh approach."
"In Vinai (Venkatesham), Thomas (Frank) and Peter Charrington, they believe they are backing the right team to deliver on this. This is a new era."
If so, the last acts of the old era were a series of insufficient bids for forwards, as the club desperately tried for another attacker in the last days of the transfer window. Some Premier League figures had long tired of doing business with Levy. "You did a deal once and you never wanted to do it again," in the words of one source. His previously fearsome reputation in negotiations had long faded. People were just fatigued.
It had even been noted how Spurs were finally willing to spend big money, from new investment but it was like they didn’t know how to; as if they didn’t know how to go and make a big blockbuster deal happen. This was most evident in a frustrated pursuit of Morgan Rogers. Some close to the situation insisted that one of the other, "big six" would've put forward a huge figure to test Aston Villa’s resolve. Spurs wouldn’t do it without having a sense of a price.
It was viewed as typical of the club under Levy and all the more ironic given his own fixation on being a, "big club." That often applied to refusing to sell players, even when it made sense and in the appointment of so many "name" managers when they weren’t right for the club. Sources began to believe that "ego" was getting in the way.
Yet, such sentiments are directly countered by immense admiration elsewhere, especially for the way Levy bust Spurs into that, "big six." Some of the most senior figures in the Premier League enthuse about how he has done a, "brilliant job" and really like him. That was one huge reason that Spurs were brought into the Super League, precisely for his business acumen.
It’s consequently fair to say he splits opinion, just as he does among fans, to go with that distinctive split in the debate about his legacy: the business versus the football; the macro of running a football club against the micro.
The debate around Levy has always been binary, which is all too fitting for an official who has always brought it down to the numbers. That applied to the prioritisation of the top four over silverware; the number he would always demand in any transfer deal; the wage ratio; the record revenue and the trophies.
The latter two are what it really will come down to. The last accounts showed a revenue of £528.4m, already up £209.8m from Mauricio Pochettino’s launchpad season of 2015-16. Yet, amid a wage-to-turnover ratio of just 42%, Levy’s chairmanship only produced two trophies.
The sacking of Ange Postecoglou even left a sour note to the Europa League victory, despite the logic of the decision. Yet, all of that must still be put in a certain context.
Mauricio Pochettino has revealed that he texted Daniel Levy after his departure as Tottenham Hotspur chairman. The club confirmed on Thursday evening that the 63-year-old had, "stepped down from his role as executive chairman after nearly 25 years."
As reported by football.london back in May, a significant summer of change was anticipated and Levy's departure from the North London club marks the climax of this.
Pochettino, who managed Tottenham under Levy between 2014 and 2019, has now spoken on the departure of a chairman he describes having had a "very good" relationship with. "I knew the news about Daniel Levy yesterday," he said, via Sky Sports. "I am a little bit in shock, because he was my former president. I don't know what happened there."
"Of course, I sent a text to him and I sent a text to different people that were very close to him. Still no answer (from Levy). I don't have more information. What I want to say is I wish all the best for his life and his family time. My relationship was always very good. I was in shock like many people that know him."
According to a new report from The Telegraph, it is understood the decision to sack Levy was part of ENIC's new strategy to help Tottenham build on their Europa League victory in May - the club's first trophy in 17 years. The report claims ENIC and Lewis have no interest in selling the club and therefore the £100m boost is designed to help Spurs bridge the gap between themselves and Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and fierce rivals Arsenal.
The true story of his departure has paints a much different picture.
The football world was informed of Levy's bombshell departure just before 6pm on Thursday, but according to the Times, the man himself was only told that morning during a meeting. The decision came as a shock to the 63-year-old, who had meetings scheduled for Friday, it's added.
Staff and players, many of whom are away on international duty, were also in the dark. An email from the Tottenham's new chief executive, Vinai Venkatesham, was sent around as an official statement was released.
During a recent interview with Gary Neville for the Overlap, Levy suggested that history will remember his reign at Tottenham kindly. "I think it's one of those situations - when I'm not here I'm sure I'll get the credit," he explained.
"When you come here and look at this wonderful building [Tottenham Hotspur Stadium], and the fact that other clubs are now trying to copy what we’re doing, that should be a sign that maybe we did do something bold, and something right."
In a statement following Thursday's announcement, Levy said: "I am incredibly proud of the work I have done together with the executive team and all our employees. We have built this club into a global heavyweight competing at the highest level.
"More than that, we have built a community. I was lucky enough to work with some of the greatest people in this sport, from the team at Lilywhite House and Hotspur Way to all the players and managers over the years.
"I wish to thank all the fans that have supported me over the years. It hasn't always been an easy journey but significant progress has been made. I will continue to support this club passionately."
Just like everyone else, I was shocked when I saw this headline. Deep diving into this story, I can see that the owners wanted something new and bold. This move had nothing to do with hearing the thoughts and opinions. Despite this, I'm pretty sure most Spurs fans are happy.
I really couldn't care about this. I'm not a Tottenham supporter. I am, however, curious as to how they will function. I know I'm being biased but hopefully things will remain the same.