Tottenham Hotspur have pledged to help tackle the spiralling Neets crisis with a flurry of measures that include a university campus at their north London stadium.

In a move that Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden has called “further evidence of the leading role football has to play in helping create opportunity for young people”, the Premier League club has committed to creating 150,000 “life-changing” opportunities for people aged five to 25 by the end of the decade through the “Together Tottenham” project.

It comes amid societal data revealing that Tottenham Hotspur’s host borough – Haringey – has a child poverty rate of 38 per cent while North Tottenham is listed among the top 10 per cent of the most deprived neighbourhoods in England.

revealed earlier this year that the local governing Green council had asked for 0.1 per cent of Tottenham’s revenues (around £500,000 a year) to fund local projects after accusing the club of reneging on pledges over social housing and community initiatives. Spurs strongly denied the allegations.

Neets crisis tackled?

Spurs will open a “new university campus in Tottenham” with four university partners teaching “degree and postgraduate courses from the stadium and heritage buildings restored by the club”, while also connecting “young people from across north London with jobs, apprentices, work experience, mentoring and training”.

Around 1m Brits aged 16 to 24 are classed as Neets – not in education, employment, or training – with recent rises in employment costs and a fall in vacancies seen as key factors in young people being out of work.

“Together Tottenham is an investment in our young people, in our shared future and in the enduring belief that Tottenham’s best days lie ahead,” Tottenham MP David Lammy said.

The club says it has already invested £1.2bn into the local community since the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium opened in 2019, and will be developing 285 student accommodation rooms as part of a wider development of the Printworks site in north London. They’ve also signed an agreement with Haringey Council to deliver more than 550 homes on a local development site between the stadium and the nearby White Hart Lane station.

They said: “Together Tottenham represents a renewed, shared purpose between the club and its charity, Spurs in the Community, to improve life chances for young people in north London.”