From this perch, it is the kind of development one prays for: the parent organization of the Toronto Maple Leafs sticking its nose into the hurly-burly business of English soccer.
These are early days, of course. The story last week suggesting that Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment was kicking the tires of venerable Tottenham Hotspur reflected, at most, a potential deal in its formative stages. Still, that's more than enough encouragement for the uber-competitive English sports press, which is awash these days in tales of predatory foreign zillionaires swooping down on English Premier League franchises.
The Daily Mail was first off the mark yesterday with a short item on the visit of Canadian “sports tycoon” Richard Peddie. “[He] has been extraordinarily successful financially since taking over MLSE,” they write, “with its value tripling to over $1.5-billion.”
Peddie is merely a hired gun, an employee, and not a tycoon per se – surely a fine distinction that will be sorted out down the road.
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Still, for the moment he has been cast as yet another international man of mystery with oodles of loonies burning a hole in his pocket, in search of a football club fallen on hard times. Add the Canadian to a list that already includes Roman Abramovich, George Gillett and Tom Hicks, Randy Lerner, the Glazers, and Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand and Human Rights Watch poster boy (a completely charming guy, by the way) who owns Manchester City.
Though foreign ownership in the Premiership has become nearly as commonplace as foreign players and managers, it is still met with a degree of ambivalence which can easily swing towards the hostile and xenophobic if things go sour.
Supporters well understand the cash equation of the game – only rich teams prosper, so having an insanely wealthy sugar daddy, no matter what his passport, can be a very good thing indeed.
At Chelsea, for instance, though they may not be crazy about Abramovich's idiosyncrasies (or his firing of Jose Mourinho and hiring of Avram Grant), they can look at where the club was before he arrived from Russia, look at where it is now – a perennial contender at home and in Europe – and decide that on balance, they're far better off.
They are still cautiously optimistic about Thaksin's tenure at City, though a bright start to the season led nowhere. At Manchester United, where supporters were burning Malcolm Glazer in effigy when he bought the club, things have settled down noticeably, the issue of looming debt happily obscured by the possibility of a Premier League and Champions League double. It helps that the Glazers never say anything, hardly ever appear in public, and therefore don't have much chance to play the Ugly American, behaviour Hicks might have been well-served to emulate. He and estranged partner Gillett have endured a nightmarish year-and-a-bit at Liverpool, the cautionary tale as to all that can go wrong.
Remaining behind closed doors certainly wouldn't be a problem for the Maple Leafs' ownership, especially the real money guys from the teachers' pension fund. They never show their faces and never say a peep.
And consider all of the natural synergies with Tottenham.
Both clubs wear blue. Both clubs inhabit, or once inhabited, fabled sports stadia, Maple Leaf Gardens and White Hart Lane. Both have been forced to stand back bitterly and watch as hated, red-clad rivals (Arsenal, Ottawa and Montreal) prospered while they spun their wheels. Both have changed coaches and management fruitlessly, spent money unwisely, overcommitted resources to fading local heroes.
Spurs haven't won the League since the fabled double of 1961.
They are long on history, long on tradition, long on name recognition, they were one of the best sides in the world in the early 1960s, they were quite good about 25 years ago, they're a bit short on recent accomplishments and tend to cling to moral victories.
They are – almost – the Leafs.
And wait until the London tabloids get a true fix on Tottenham's would-be purchasers, sports owners who excel at building condos and raking in profits off the delusions of the faithful. Who never get overly romantic about winning. Who squeezed every last nickel out of a historic brand. Who have been wandering through the desert since 1967. Who have made finding a hockey GM seem like finding the Holy Grail. Who are probably closer now to capturing a trophy in Major League Soccer than they are in the NBA or the NHL.
Well, at least it's the right sport.
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