This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 23, 2026 – March 29, 2026
It’s just as well that there is plenty to see and do at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. A tourist attraction, it has a skywalk up to the iconic cockerel, the club’s proud symbol, perched on high. There is the longest bar in Europe, 60 eateries, a microbrewery and murals of famous players. Boxing, rugby, NFL and concerts are staged on retractable pitches. As for football, once the club’s core business, there is a genuine risk that it could be downgraded to below Premier quality.
Yes, Spurs, one of the EPL’s Big Six “untouchables”, is fighting to avoid dropping into the second tier. With the title race all but over, the relegation battle is the big story. If the worst happens, it will be one of the most shocking demotions in football history, given the massive financial advantage the elite clubs now enjoy over the hoi polloi.
A 90th-minute equaliser at Liverpool last weekend has given them an unexpected lifeline. A torrid 5-2 defeat to Atletico Madrid in Europe left them with all the hallmarks of a sinking ship. It was the first time they had lost six successive matches in their 143-year history. Injuries mounted, and the new temporary manager, Igor Tudor, known for short-term fixes, looked rudderless.
Twisting the knife for fans is that the downturn coincides with the club’s rise to the Top 10 in the Deloitte Money League. Boosted by revenues from its £1 billion stadium, Tottenham are hobnobbing with the game’s high society — Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool et al. The EPL’s Big Six are all in the Top 10.
But Spurs’ recent “promotion” to this lofty circle is in peril. It sits just one point above the EPL drop zone with eight games to play. As accountants scurry to calculate the losses that relegation would bring, most estimates are around £300 million (RM1.56 trillion). But that doesn’t include damage to the brand, marketing, NextGen appeal or morale of supporters already at the end of their tether.
Most Spurs fans are outraged by the prospect of having to slum it in places like Preston, Portsmouth and Middlesbrough next season. Or even entertaining such mediocrities in a half-full arena. It’s a palace built for European royalty, but of course there would be no Europe, no glamour, and no floodlit classics to savour.
No one thought this would ever happen. It is not supposed to happen. Since Manchester City were relegated in 2001, none of the Big Six has gone down. Although Spurs are among the heavyweights to have fallen in the past, the last time was before the EPL created the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.
Spurs last took a dip in 1977-78, when a season at a lower level was nothing like as doom-laden. It could even be a springboard for a club to bounce back with renewed vigour. And Spurs did just that with a team built around a precocious teenager, Glenn Hoddle. But it was a different world then: today, leaving the gravy train, even with parachute payments, can mean leaping into the abyss.
Coventry City, who lead the Championship, have been away for 25 years. Leeds were missing for 16 and Nottingham Forest were in the wilderness for 23. If Spurs do drop, their resources should enable them to return after one season. But fans find it hard to understand why they even have to worry when their annual revenue dwarfs that of their lowly rivals.
The bitter irony is that the stadium was built to fund the team’s shift to a higher level, not a lower one. But off-the-field matters have always seemed to take precedence. In 2012, they lavished £45 million on a state-of-the-art training ground — more than they’d spent on a player.
Chairman Daniel Levy was desperate for Spurs to be a big club but tried to do it on the cheap. He paid lower wages than other Big Six clubs and continued to shop at Amcorp Mall, not Pavilion. Cash was wasted on mid-range duds and the trophies refused to come.
The suspicion has long been that profits came before points. When they decided to build an entirely new stadium instead of revamping White Hart Lane, performances suffered with home games having to be played at Wembley while the stadium was being built.
Levy got lucky with a young manager, Mauricio Pochettino, who had done well at Southampton, and the two took the club to new heights. Spearheaded by England’s Harry Kane and South Korean winger Son Heung-Min, they went all the way to the Champions League final in 2019, where they lost 2-0 to Liverpool.
Things went downhill from there. Pochettino, not given the funds to strengthen the squad, was sacked by Levy five months later. With both managers and players, Spurs’ recruitment has been scattergun at best. There is no discernible pattern. Five managers have held the seat since the Argentine, and in both style and temperament, they seem to alternate between sweet and sour.
After Poch came José Mourinho, who was famously sacked a week before the Carabao Cup final. In came another big name, the volatile Antonio Conte, and then the steady hand of Nuno Espirito Santo. Then it was back to gung-ho football under Ange Postecoglou. After a promising start under the Australian, Spurs slid down the table, and in his second season, finished one place above the relegation zone. However, a narrow victory over Manchester United in the Europa Cup final at long last ended the trophy drought. Postecoglou was sacked 16 days later.
Then Levy went for a more pragmatic coach in Thomas Frank of Brentford, only to be sacked himself in September after almost 25 years at the helm. Frank was put out of his misery in February and in came Tudor.
In mitigation, Spurs have had no luck. Their injury list might come from a World War I battlefield. Thirteen players were missing last weekend. Two recent implosions could be scripts for a horror movie. At home to Crystal Palace, a 1-0 lead after 35 minutes was turned into a 3-1 deficit by a needless red card. By half-time, the stadium was half-empty as fans showed their disgust. Palace coasted to a 3-1 win.
Worse followed in Madrid a week later. A nightmare start by a nervous young goalkeeper, Antonin Kinsky, saw Spurs go 3-0 down after 17 minutes, with the keeper hooked. A distraught Kinsky had to be consoled by teammates concerned about his mental state. Tottenham’s global diaspora also needed an arm around its back.
With nine men already out, the last thing needed was more injuries. But when the gods are against you… A clash of heads between two defenders left both suffering a concussion, which kept them out against Liverpool.
If the worst does happen, the salutary lesson will be that a football club’s priority, no matter the size, should be football. It’s a mess. Postecoglou has since summed up life at the club: “Every time I think I see light at the end of the tunnel, it turns out to be an oncoming train.” At the end of this season, Spurs fans will still be hoping it’s still the gravy train.
It’s an easy line, but the decision-makers appear to have been, instead of proud cockerels, headless chickens.
Bob Holmes is a long-time sportswriter specialising in football
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