A football finance expert has now explained what the expected outcome is likely to be in Tottenham Hotspur’s legal battle against INEOS regarding an alleged breach of contract.
Over the last few months, Spurs Web has been bringing you regular updates about the claims and counterclaims made by the North London club and INEOS after the multinational corporation reneged on a commercial agreement.
INOEOS announced a multi-million-pound, five-year deal with Spurs in December 2022 to promote the INEOS Grenadier car as the club’s ‘official 4×4 vehicle partner’.
However, the firm, which owns a minority stake in Man United, ended the agreement prematurely last year, and Tottenham took High Court legal action on June 12 against INEOS, demanding compensation for their losses.
It was revealed that Spurs were seeking £11m from INEOS, which includes £5.5m for missed payments last year, another £5.3m for the 2026-27 campaign, the final year of the sponsorship deal, and an additional £300,000 in interest.
Tottenham and INEOS are expected to reach a settlement
Last month, it emerged that INEOS is counter-suing Tottenham, claiming that the club had started negotiating with a competitor for rights that were exclusive to them under their agreement.
Football finance expert Stefan Borsen has now opined that Spurs are indeed due to be compensated by the Man United owners, and backed the two parties to settle outside the court.
Borson told Football Insider: “I think they’ll settle it, so I don’t think they’ll ever go to court. It’s quite interesting that basically what happened was Spurs were trying to sell Harry Kane and as part of that, Bayern obviously made an introduction to Audi and I think Audi got quite close to doing a deal but didn’t.
“As part of Audi potentially doing the deal, Tottenham Hotspur offered INEOS some additional benefits and rights in the sponsorship, but only if Audi took the sponsorship.
“Anyway, time passes, Audi don’t take the sponsorship, but INEOS, given that they love a deal, went to Spurs and said, ‘Well, look, why don’t you give us the extra benefits anyway? Effectively wrap them in, throw them in for free’.
“I think partly because Spurs have a new commercial team and a new commercial lead, they agreed. They weren’t probably quite specific enough that they were agreeing the extra rights to INEOS, but probably didn’t want to give them extra termination rights.
“But if you read the cases, I think that INEOS will succeed in saying that all of the rights that were potentially additional, including the termination right, were given to INEOS.
“Anyway, a few months passes, and INEOS take both the additional rights and also take the ability to terminate early and issue a termination. But I don’t think that termination means that they shouldn’t pay the bit that was outstanding according to Spurs, and that was an indexation fee.
“It’s basically a fee that says that you take the base fee and you index link it effectively for inflation, so I think that money does seem to be owed by INEOS.”
Could this affect Spurs’ relationship with Man United?
It is perhaps a little surprising that Spurs have threatened legal action against INEOS, given that it is in their interest to maintain a good relationship with the other Premier League clubs.
In the PSR era, we have seen direct rivals selling players to each other much more often than they did previously, as all clubs strive not to breach the financial restrictions.
One thus cannot rule out the possibility of Tottenham wanting to do a deal with Man United in the near future, but this legal tangle would undoubtedly make that harder.