Back in the days when a pay-off was a snappy exit line rather than financial bounty for a good job done badly, Bill Nicholson delivered a quote that has echoed through the ages. Having just left his post as manager of Tottenham Hotspur, Nicholson signed off his final press briefing by pointing over his shoulder and muttering: "There used to be a football club over there."

Nicholson was referring to how Spurs' traditional glory game had become corrupted by the boardroom's pursuit of cold, hard cash but were he alive today, and chose to glance again at his former employers' north London headquarters, he would find they have plumbed even greater depths. White Hart Lane - far from being a monument to the commercialisation of sport - is now simply a circus, and an amateurish one at that.

In the middle of the sanded circle, trying desperately to exert some control over the clowns capering around him, stands Martin Jol. The Dutchman put on his squarest jaw and steeliest gaze for yesterday's predictably deflating trip to Manchester United, but inside he must have been seething. In the space of seven shambolic days, he has seen his authority stripped away in the most demeaning fashion by his club's clumsy courtship of Sevilla's Juende Ramos. Jol will stagger on - possibly to Christmas, maybe even to the end of the season - but he surely cannot be saved.

The post-Premier League age has thrown up some extraordinarily cack-handed dismissals, usually at Newcastle United, but this one might just top the lot. No manager should be above criticism, and it is true that Jol was already under pressure to deliver a top-four finish this season, but the absurd way in which Spurs have tried to oust the 51-year-old should serve as a warning to any chairmen feeling an itch in their trigger fingers.

Watching Spurs attempt to deny their interest in Ramos last week was akin to seeing a sticky-fingered child trying to convince his parents he has not been at the biscuit barrel. First came the assertion - only made after the Spanish media printed photos of a delegation of senior officials meeting Juende in Seville - that the club were entitled to search for the best available coach but no concrete offer had been tabled.

Then, when Ramos confirmed Spurs had proposed "dizzying" terms, out came another Spurs statement, pleading - in the time-honoured fashion of sportspeople who realise they have put their foot in it - mistranslation. Finally, almost as an afterthought, there was an assurance from chairman Daniel Levy that he was still "100 per cent behind" his beleaguered coach - a remark that, in the context of the previous few days, brought to mind Tommy Docherty's line about preferring to see his old Aston Villa chairman Doug Ellis in front of him, where he could see him.

For Spurs fans, it must seem that the club has been catapulted into the bad old days, when London's best value comedy club was to be found not in swanky Soho, but grotty N17. Belly laughs guaranteed at a venue with Ossie Ardiles, Christian Gross and Jacques Santini on the bill.

The joke now is that Levy, whose arrival appeared to banish the dark memories of a balding Swiss brandishing travel cards, is directly responsible for this latest farce - not because he was too hasty in seeking to replace Jol, as many have suggested, but because he was too late.

If Levy had decided that three years of near misses had eroded his faith in Jol's ability to hoist Spurs into the top four, then fine: he should have sacked him in the summer, preferably before handing him a € 59 million transfer kitty. As it is, Ramos, Fabio Capello, Mark Hughes or whoever finally steps into Jol's size 12s will find a club with bare coffers and a squad stuffed full of players loyal to the old manager.

Levy is not a stupid man. He has made a stack of money in business, had the good sense to appoint Jol in the first place and has made Tottenham a permanent fixture in football's rich list. But the fact remains that if he had displayed similarly idiotic leadership in his old city job, he would have been rewarded with the sack.

Ironically, Jol could yet emerge as the biggest winner in the whole unseemly mess. He has the sympathy not just of the press, which has always appreciated his dry wit, but more importantly of the Tottenham support, who bellowed his name to the roof-tops in Manchester yesterday.

As Jol pointed out last week, he could comfortably secure a job at a Champions League club. His future is secure. But after the way he has behaved this season, who on earth would want to work for Daniel Levy?