With the sale of Harry 'he's one of our own' Kane - arguably the finest player in Tottenham Hotspur's history - ENIC's Daniel Levy-led ownership of Spurs has now entered injury time at the end of borrowed time for fans.
The club will inevitably point out that Kane's refusal to sign a new contract left them with no choice but to cash in their only world-class player. That the ignominy of Kane turning out in the colours of another English club has been avoided will presumably also be offered as a sop to dismayed supporters. But out of sight in Germany will not mean out of mind. Kane's departure will reprise the start of ENIC's tenure when another home-grown idol decided Tottenham could not fulfil his sporting ambitions. In the two decades since Sol Campbell did the unthinkable by crossing the north-London divide - the ENIC era - Spurs have added a solitary League Cup to their honours list, while Carrick, Berbatov, Bale, Modric, Walker, and now Kane have reached the same inexorable conclusion: Tottenham Hotspur ain't where it's at.
Of course, no rational fan will say Spurs have any divine right to silverware, particularly in the epoch of oligarchs and oil states. However, they are now fully entitled to recoil at being charged the most expensive ticket prices in the Premier League following a season where the club failed to secure participation in even Europe's third-tier competition. Until now, the consensus among the quiet majority of Spurs supporters has been to rebut the Twitter firebrands who regularly and carelessly lean into antisemitic tropes when casting Daniel Levy as an arch-villain. Lest it be forgotten, two of the three chairmen who came before Levy at White Hart Lane took the club to the brink when rebuilding single stands at the old ground. By contrast, Levy has successfully delivered a shimmering 21st Century billion-pound footballing cathedral. Furthermore, anyone who endured the dismal football - and relegation peril - that comprised the Alan Sugar years will continue to warm their hands on memories of two title challenges under Mauricio Pochettino and a thrilling run to the final of the Champions League in the spring of 2019.
However, since those halcyon days, Levy has repeatedly stubbed his toe when making the big calls. The inexplicable decision to replace the beloved Pochettino with the reviled Jose Mourinho, the tone-deaf furloughing of staff during the Covid-19 pandemic (which thankfully he walked back on), the shameful dalliance with the European Super League, the appointment of Fabio Paratici as managing director of football despite his involvement in the Juventus scandal that ultimately saw the Italian banned from football for 30 months, the promise to return to Tottenham's swashbuckling 'DNA' after the miserable Mourinho seasons and subsequent appointment - following a shambolic search - of the ultra-cautious Nuno. The hiring and firing of Antonio Conte. The replacement of Conte with his assistant Cristian Stellini, only to immediately jettison him for Ryan Mason. And on. And on.
Against this backdrop, little wonder that a growing rank of fans called for Levy to go as last season reached its anti-climax. The appointment of Ange Postecoglu over the summer, however, appeared to offer the embattled chairman some respite - even in the wake of the announcement that billionaire Joe Lewis, whose family ultimately own Spurs, was indicted for insider trading in New York. It is a testament to the Australian coach's undoubted charisma - and perhaps the desperation of Spurs fans to grasp and nurture any sapling of hope - that optimism grew in pre-season. That was until - on the literal eve of the new campaign - news broke that Spurs had accepted Bayern Munich's bid for Kane, the man expected to spearhead as captain the longed-for renaissance under Postecoglu.
Depressingly there is little prospect of regime change in N17. Tottenham is privately owned, meaning ENIC and Levy will cede control on their terms and only for the right price. There is no possibility of fans raising the circa £2 billion the club is said to be worth.. As such, the only alternative to ENIC is some other venture capitalists espousing profit over glory or, worse still, a further unpalatable sports-washing assault on English football by a human rights-abusing nation-state, which really is no choice at all.