There have been a lot of conversations among the supporters about how the game is moving towards money and how that is not just, and now Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has warned about one of the related things in the modern game.

The 63-year-old club chairman insists that related-party sponsorship deals are one of the most significant threats that we are facing in modern football as he urges to bring more oversight to make sure that there is still fair competition in the game.

Levy pushes to keep a level playing field

While he was speaking openly about the problem, Levy went on to speak about the inherent risk posed when clubs that are owned by states or powerful conglomerates end up arranging lucrative sponsorship agreements that are quite internal (so in a way it is funding the club to make more money, which in turn is used to buy players).

Speaking with Gary Neville on The Overlap, Levy said:

“I think one of the biggest threats is related party sponsorship. I think that’s the area that has to be controlled because if you end up having clubs that are owned by states and I have no issue with that at all in principle but they can do deals with themselves and that puts them in a very competitive advantage compared to everybody else and I think that’s an area that has to be looked at.”

These comments from Levy show this growing concern among European clubs about how bringing in finances from such internal sponsorships would end up distorting a sense of competition, but that being said, he did stress that he does not oppose clubs with state ownership in football in principle but went on to suggest the establishment of clear regulations so it kind of makes sure that there is no imbalance in terms of competition with these self-funded sponsorships.

This is one of the problems that has been growing lately, especially given how we are watching these big state-backed ownership groups putting in crazy money into the clubs they own in the Premier League and across Europe. Which then has a domino effect given that clubs with this significant financial backing can (at least by logic) have better sponsorship deals that are well above the market value, and this ends up dressing their revenue streams much more than it should be. And the whole chain ends up helping them clear out Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

And these concerns from Levy show how Tottenham are stanced to protect this competitive integrity in the game.

As money in football grows, there needs to be a deep audit of these things, which can take out a sense of competitiveness from the game.