ALAN SUGAR, chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, denied milking the club yesterday after announcing a controversial £7.3 million one off, write down of player values in its accounts.

Sugar, who has seen the value of his 40 per cent stake in Spurs jump from £13 million to over £35 million in the last year, said his main challenge was to make Tottenham "a great club again". He also said that he did not need to make any money from it.

An organisation called the Tottenham Hotspur Action Group had yesterday published a stinging attack on Sugar, predicting a spiralling decline of the club as long as he remained in control.

"While he is in charge of Spurs, the club will never attract big name signings, will lose the good players it has, and will not win the Premiership. As other clubs invest for the future, Alan Sugar is doing nothing and Spurs are being left behind."

Speaking as Tottenham unveiled full year pre tax profits of £11.9 million, against £5.4 million for the same period last year, the Spurs chairman defended the club's failure to sign top class players.

Attacking rising transfer fees, Sugar describing himself as "bewildered" by Alan Shearer's recent £15 million record transfer to Newcastle.

"The fact of the matter is that if Newcastle write down £15 million over five years, then if we believe what the papers say Shearer's wages are, it could be costing them £5.5 million a season. If you win the Champions League I'm told you'll get no more than £6 million or £7 million."

Indicating that manager Gerry Francis did have money to spend on players, Sugar said there were "four or five balls in the air".

Last night, Francis echoed Sugar's disapproval of the British transfer market. "A lot of people are paying big money for average players. Our transfer market is like the Italian one was a few years ago, with people paying telephone numbers for players. But that has dried up now. I can see the same thing happening here."