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The former owner of Tottenham Hotspur pleaded guilty in New York on Wednesday to three insider trading charges.
Joe Lewis, the 86-year-old billionaire whose family trust still controls a majority of the team, was charged in July with giving information on his portfolio companies to friends, romantic partners, and associates while still in control of the 141-year old Premier League club. Among those who profited from Lewis’s intel: two pilots for his private plane, who earned millions of dollars in profits, prosecutors say. Lewis had been charged with three counts of conspiracy and 16 counts of securities fraud, and as part of an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of securities fraud.
Reports from last February indicated that the ownership group had no interest in selling the team, but the group changed course in September, saying it would be open to an offer from potential minority investors. The Premier League, meanwhile, has seen several lucrative ownership changes in recent years: New owners bought Chelsea FC for $5.3 billion in 2022; Liverpool FC saw a $200 million minority stake sold to private equity in September; and Manchester United’s owners gave up control of football operations and a 25% stake in the club for $1.3 billion in December.
Spurs, according to a Forbes calculation from May, rank as the ninth most-valuable team in all of soccer, at roughly $2.8 billion. (As of Wednesday, they ranked fifth in the Premier League.) And the outlet recently evaluated Lewis’s net worth to be around $6.2 billion. Lewis hasn’t held major control of the team since October 2022, and he is not a beneficiary of the family trust that owns it.
Lewis will now wait in the U.S. for his sentencing on March 28, which could include up to 25 years in prison.
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