Five months after Eight Sports Capital announced it had agreed to buy 24.99% of Tottenham Hotspur’s parent company from Daniel Levy’s family trusts, not a penny has changed hands. On Monday we learned one more reason why the deal looks so difficult to close.
Bloomberg reported that Wing Fai Ng, the Hong Kong financier who led the Firehawk approach for Tottenham in 2025 and who is identified as a principal behind Eight Sports, was made the subject of a bankruptcy order in Hong Kong in April 2025, over approximately HK$31 million (about US$4 million, or £3 million) in debts his creditors say are unpaid. On 28 October 2026 the trustees of his estate filed a Chapter 15 petition in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, asking it to recognise the Hong Kong proceeding so they can pursue his US assets, reportedly including his shares in Nasdaq-listed Triller Group.
Mr Ng is appealing the order. According to the US filings as reported, some of the debts have since been repaid and others remain outstanding. Asked by Bloomberg about the bankruptcy, including whether it had been disclosed to advisers or to his co-investors in Eight Sports, his spokesperson said he “rejects the premise” of those questions. Eight Sports Capital told City AM it had no comment. No court or regulator has made any finding of wrongdoing against Mr Ng, and nothing in this article suggests otherwise.
Who is Wing Fai Ng?
Mr Ng is a career financial-services executive: Salomon Smith Barney, a senior strategy role at Taiwan’s Fubon Financial, co-founder of the Asia-focused private equity firm Primus Pacific Partners, group president of Hong Kong’s Convoy Global, then chief executive of AGBA Group. When AGBA merged with Triller in October 2024 he became Group CEO of the combined, Nasdaq-listed company.
The constant across that career is his association with the Tsai family behind Fubon. Richard Tsai, whose personal fortune is estimated at around US$12 billion, is the backer to whom Eight Sports’ financial credibility has always been attached. That matters, because some reporting earlier this year described Mr Ng himself as a billionaire. I have found no public filing that supports that description. His disclosed listed shareholdings are modest. That is a statement about what can be verified, not a claim about private assets we cannot see.
Two approaches to Spurs
The first came in September 2025, days after Levy’s exit as executive chairman. Tottenham’s board announced that ENIC had “unequivocally rejected” an expression of interest from a consortium led by Dr Roger Kennedy and Mr Ng through Firehawk Holdings. Firehawk confirmed on 3 October 2025 that it would not make an offer. On the reported dates, that approach was made several months after the Hong Kong bankruptcy order.
The second was the Eight Sports deal. On 5 June 2026 the buyer announced an agreement to acquire two holding companies, Walburg Holdings and Larkin, which between them held 24.99% of ENIC. ENIC said the same day that neither it nor the club was aware of any sale. The stake was pitched just below 25%, below the thresholds that matter for ownership tests, and translated into a 22% look-through economic interest in the club, with no control and no board seat.
A deal that hasn’t closed
Since then the reporting has run one way. The Telegraph reported in August that no payment had been made and that a proposed acquisition loan had not materialised, leaving Mr Tsai to fund the purchase from his own resources. Bloomberg reported in September that talks had stalled on how the money would be routed, that several payment deadlines had passed, and that Levy was seeking interest and compensation for the delay. Last month Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer claimed £2.7 million in fees from Eight Sports for advising on the deal; Eight Sports disputes the claim and has asked a BVI court to set it aside.
The vehicle adds its own questions. Triller was suspended from Nasdaq from December 2025 to April 2026 after failing to file its accounts, restated how it accounts for its stake in Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, and has received further listing-deficiency notices since. A securities class action filed this month makes allegations about its disclosures during that period; those allegations are unproven.
What the bankruptcy changes
The debt is small relative to a £600m–£1bn transaction. Its significance lies elsewhere. A person under a bankruptcy order generally loses control of assets in his own name to his trustees. If Mr Ng’s economic interest in Eight Sports runs through his Triller shares, and those shares are now being pursued in a US court, his personal stake in the deal is exposed. More practically, every lender, insurer and regulator looking at the transaction now has a live, cross-border insolvency to diligence. Bankruptcy-type events are among the matters treated as disqualifying under the Premier League’s owners’ test, and the Independent Football Regulator brings its own statutory test and its own concept of “significant influence”. A sub-25% structure is a thinner shield than it used to be.
There is also a timeline question that is yet to be resolved. Reports describe the 2025 bankruptcy filings as made about a month after Tottenham rejected Firehawk, which would be October 2025, not April. The likeliest explanation is that later steps in the estate are being referred to, but until the primary documents are available that remains open.
What it means for Levy
Levy is the person most exposed. While the deal drifts, the Lewis family keeps putting money into ENIC, around £320 million in total by recent reports, and Levy has not taken up his rights. His share of ENIC has fallen from 29.88% to roughly 24–25%. If the agreement covers a fixed number of shares, Eight Sports would now be buying closer to 20% of ENIC, or around 18% of the club on a look-through basis, which hands the buyer an obvious argument for a lower price. Every month of delay moves value away from the seller.
The price itself has always been ambitious. £1 billion for 24.99% of ENIC implies a club equity value of about £4.5 billion before any discount for a powerless minority position. Bloomberg’s later figure of more than US$1 billion (about £740 million) implies about £3.4 billion.
What it means for Tottenham
Control is not a consideration. The Lewis Family Trust’s grip has tightened with each capital injection. But a minority shareholder of this size typically has information rights at holding-company level, and if the deal ever completes ENIC and the club should expect questions from the Premier League and the regulator about who stands behind the new shareholder and how it is funded. The impasse also strengthens the Lewis family’s hand if it ever decides the cleanest outcome is to buy Levy out itself.
My view
On the public record, completion of the Eight Sports agreement on its original terms now looks unlikely. A restructured deal funded directly by Richard Tsai through a vehicle insulated from Mr Ng’s personal position is the only plausible route to closing, and even that would need the price to reflect the dilution Levy has suffered. The more likely outcome is that the agreement lapses.
Mr Ng is entitled to pursue his appeal, and part-repayment of the debts suggests a dispute rather than an abandoned estate. But the episode reinforces a lesson English football keeps relearning: when a buyer’s credibility rests on someone else’s money, the diligence has to begin with the person at the front of the deal.
The Hong Kong bankruptcy order is under appeal. Debts are described as alleged. The Chapter 15 petition is pending. The Triller class action contains allegations only and its published notice does not name Mr Ng. No finding of wrongdoing has been made against Mr Ng, Eight Sports Capital or Triller.
Sources: Bloomberg / Bloomberg Law (9 Nov 2026); Law360; OffshoreAlert; City AM; Insurance Business; The Telegraph; BBC Sport; Inside World Football; Pomerantz LLP; Triller Group SEC filings. My June 2026 analysis of the Levy stake sale is here.
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