Lord Sugar reveals his Tottenham Hotspur regret

Most Spurs fans do not look back on the Lord Alan Sugar era with much fondness as the club were mired in midtable mediocrity for most of that time and even flirted with relegation on occasions.

It is fair to say Lord Sugar wasn’t too popular with Spurs fans back then and he has admitted now that buying Tottenham Hotspur was the worst mistake he has ever made.

The entrepreneur, who has supported Spurs since he was a kid, bought a majority stake in the club in 1991 and remained the club’s chairman for almost a decade before selling some of his shares to ENIC in 2001. He then sold his remaining shares to the investment firm in 2007.

During his time at the helm, Spurs failed to finish in the top six even and only won one major trophy.

Despite admitting to making a profit off the club, Sugar has admitted that he is mentally at a much better place now having sold the club he loves.

The Daily Star quotes The Apprentice host as saying: “Tottenham Hotspur – the club cost me £8m and I sold for £25m in 2007, so it wasn’t a bad investment financially.

“Some might even argue I should have held onto it, because Spurs are worth £1bn now, but my decade as chairman wasn’t a great period for me and my family. It made me a bit of a miserable sod.

“Only now I’ve been out of it for so many years have I become the charming individual you see on TV.

“I often think that instead of spending 10 years worrying about Carlos Kickaball on the pitch and getting criticised by the fans, I could have done something more lucrative. I was still a young man then.”

Spurs Web Opinion

It is fair to say that Spurs fans were also quite miserable during the 1990s owing to the team’s poor football and mismanagement at the board level. Casting our minds back to the 1990s certainly brings some perspective on how far Daniel Levy and ENIC have taken Tottenham Hotspur. Levy certainly deserves more credit than he gets from Spurs fans and the media.

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