Irving Scholar

Irving Alan Scholar (born November 1947) is a British property developer and former investor in football clubs, most noted for his time as chairman of Tottenham Hotspur and as a director of Nottingham Forest.

As chairman of Tottenham, Scholar became known for a number of innovations in the commercialisation of the club, such as floating it on the stock market in October 1983, innovations that were copied by other football clubs. He was also instrumental in pushing for higher fees paid by television companies for rights to broadcast football matches. The financial imperative would eventually led to the formation of the Premier League with Tottenham one of the five prime movers who pushed for its formation. Tottenham won a UEFA Cup and a FA Cup with him at the helm, but his chairmanship at the club ended with heavy financial losses and the club was sold to Alan Sugar and Terry Venables.

Early career

Scholar was a surveyor and became a property developer and business executive. He made his money through a company associated with European Ferries called Townsend Thoresen Properties. He then moved to Monte Carlo for tax reasons.

Tottenham Hotspur In 1981, Scholar, a lifelong supporter of Tottenham, turned up at a meeting at Tottenham with the intention of leasing a box in the West Stand of White Hart Lane that was to be rebuilt by 1982. However, Scholar became convinced that the club would get into financial trouble over the rebuilding of the stand, and as a fan with a keen interest in the club's fortune, he started buying up shares in the club from various shareholders in order to get into the boardroom. Together with the help of Paul Bobroff who had bought 15% of shares from the family of a previous chairman Fred Bearman, he took control in December 1982 from the Richardson and Wale families who had been major shareholders for many years. with Spurs becoming the first sports club in the world to float on any stock exchange. Scholar played a significant role in the commercialisation of English football clubs, and his activities in these areas would later see him branded a visionary in a 2001 BBC documentary The Men Who Changed Football, as merchandising and stock market flotation would later become popular for football clubs. Manchester United in particular hired a former Spurs executive involved and became the most successful English club in merchandising their brand. The commercial imperative would also lead to the formation of the Premier League with Scholar one of the prime movers who pushed for its formation.

At that time, the television companies operated a cartel to keep the broadcast fees for football on television low, but Scholar persuaded the major clubs that the television companies should be made to pay considerably more for their coverage of football matches. In the ensuing dispute over broadcast fees with the television companies, no matches were broadcast for a few months in the 1985–86 season. Broadcast rights would later become a significant part of the income of English football clubs in the Premier League era with deals reaching several billions.

By the autumn of 1990, however, Scholar's Tottenham faced financial troubles due to investment in new players, the refurbishment of the East Stand in 1989 at the club's White Hart Lane ground, and losses in the companies he had created with Tottenham. Scholar looked to Robert Maxwell to help bail the club out. Maxwell agreed to support a rights issue, but he soon backed out and instead loaned £1.1 million to the club with the proviso that the deal be kept secret.