Tottenham Chairman Daniel Levy has claimed that bettering Arsenal’s stadium was not the sole reason behind Spurs’ new stadium plans. The Lilywhites are hoping to move into their new stadium, which will have a seating capacity of 61,000, that is 568 seats more than that of Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. This means that Mauricio Pochettino’s team will play at the biggest club ground in London. There have been suggestions that the sole reason for Tottenham’s marginal difference in seating capacity to that of Emirates Stadium is ‘one-upmanship’.
However, Tottenham Chairman Levy has denied such claims and suggested that the seating capacity was decided to satisfy the demands of their whole plan put together.
“That wasn’t the sole driver [building a bigger stadium than Arsenal],” Levy told NBC. The reason was simply that we have a season ticket waiting list of 58,000 people and had to find a solution. Clearly, we went for the maximum we could.”
Tottenham’s revenue would be comparatively higher than that of their current revenue, and they will also have the largest single tier stand in the entire UK, which is similar to the ‘Yellow Wall’ of Borussia Dortmund. However, Levy suggested that the revenue might be higher, but the club will have a lot of debt to repay.
He said: “Everybody thinks just because you have a bigger stadium you get more revenue and you’ll have lots more money. But when you’re spending this amount of money on a stadium we’ll have a lot of debt we will have to repay. Over the medium to long term, it gives you greater financial security and also as a player if you’re playing for a big club you want to play in a big stadium.”
Daniel Levy on the influence of @NFL on #SpursNewStadium and what life at our new home will be like…
Watch – https://t.co/FlRsQvbZWK pic.twitter.com/oqClTHLouD
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) February 27, 2017
The Spurs chairman also outlined some of the inspirations behind the club’s new ground, from American NFL stadiums all the way to Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion.
“Obviously the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium is magnificent. The amount of detail they went into in that stadium has obviously caught our attention. The new Vikings stadium – the way they did their website was fantastic. We’ve tried to learn, and we’ve had lots of conversations with those owners to see how we can learn from their experiences,” he added.
While discussing the design process behind the new stadium, the Chairman insisted that retaining White Hart Lane’s atmosphere was of utmost importance to the club.
Levy continued: “The first challenge we gave our architects was ‘how can we retain our atmosphere’ that currently exists here [at White Hart Lane] – because it’s a very tight bowl. We are five metres closer (to the pitch) from a comparable stadium in north London… so that’s the first thing. The second thing is we’re the only stadium in the UK which will have 17,000 seats in a single stand.”
When asked whether the new ground would represent a ‘little bit of Dortmund’ in north London, Levy replied: “We hope so.”
The new stadium is believed to cost in the region of £400m – though the entire project will be closer to £750m.
The club have looked to offset the financial burden of the ground through the stadium’s ability to host NFL fixtures – with a retractable pitch and separate changing facilities.
It was a cheeky dig at Arsenal from the Spurs Chairman and he looks determined to take Spurs to next level in world football. Though the struggles might be there financially, the stadium move is a welcome step in the club’s history.
