Such is the way of football: No sooner does one transfer window close than the speculation starts about the next one. Unfinished business, glaring gaps in squads and the sheer desperation of teams fighting for promotion or worse, avoiding relegation means that big money often changes hands in the winter.
West Ham’s recent transfer business in the last winter was been surprising: Not one, but two strikers arrived last year in the shape of Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe, catching fans completely by surprise as the club splashed the best part of £50 million in a vain attempt to avoid the drop.
West Ham’s winter signings last year: Pablo and Castellanos cost nearly £50 million
The signs are there, though, that there’ll be no repeat this winter. Outstanding instalments falling due over the next few seasons for players the Hammers have already bought total a huge £190 million still to be paid to their selling clubs.
Which is unfortunate considering UEFA have just decided to speak out and warn about growing debt and the ‘ever increasing reliance on deferred payments’. (westhamworld.co.uk).
Will it signal an end to buying players on the ‘never-never’? : Unlikely.
The Championship is already financially unsustainable with clubs carrying £1.4 billion worth of debt in January of this year -before the Irons arrived to worsen the figures! (theesk.org).
However, West Ham are more than likely to stick to their policy established in the summer of selling players to pay down debt, so Alvarez, Magassa and co. may yet be used to reduce the club’s liabilities.
There seems a strong possibility that Irons will have to ‘make do and mend’ with a couple of loan signings and freebies in the winter, with ‘creativity’ being the order of the day rather than just pouring money in regardless.
Perhaps you’d call it ‘football sustainability’: That seems to be the direction of travel of this West Ham board for the time being.
Fernandez_£85m, Summerville_£65m, Diouf_£40m, Potts_£10m, Marshal (Luton)_£1.5m.
Looking to sell Magassa_£20m and Alvarez_£13.5m.
Winning league (hopefully)_£200m.
Kretinsky top up (hopefully)_£90m.
Totalling_£525m.
On top of that saving of Fulkberg and Todibo wages.
Looks healthy perhaps figures are missing something.
Yes massive £35m we paid out in transfer market.
Second to PSG for making most money in sales.
I’m not sure we are all comparing apples and pears here.
I’m presuming the £190m is based upon the end of financial year May 2025. If so, some of that £190m will already have been paid.
The Jan26 purchases were funded by Paqueta and Guilherme.
We raised significant funds in summer 26 BUT not necessarily all as immediate cash.
We had considerable “bank” debt due for repayment or renegotiation. I suspect both would have been required.
We are repeatedly told that non transfer operations would see us lose £100m this season and whilst we subsequently sold far more season tickets than expected the price reduction was also unexpected so presumably the actual cash generated will be not dissimilar to that budgeted by the previous incompetent regime.
Kretinsky has yet to put in his £90m but there is a little bell ringing in my head saying he had a limited timeframe to do so as this was linked to Prem rules, whilst EFL rules reduced this figure considerably (to £15m?).
Thus we can expect little in the way of statement signings in January imo.
Various figures and ‘facts’ I’ve quoted are from often quoted figures and I’ve taken as true.
Whether Sean or Matt are able to pull definitive figures, timescales, confirmation from Companies House etc to give us an up to date position as best as they can may help manage readers expectations?
And we will have the best part of £150m owed to us in instalments (plus the bulk of Fernandes money in the bank paid up front) so the premise of the article isn’t really true.
Continued talk of wanting another centre back leads to two options.
Tomori has been previously linked and his contract expires June 2027 which means a free agent contract will be available.
Disasi signed 1year contract with Crystal Palace ending 2027 although his Chelsea contract doesn’t end till June 2028.
If there is a chance of going back to premiership both these could be negotiated in January 2027.
Whu need to start negotiating now to get ahead of opposition.
Not sure who would be likely to come in to cover Bowen.
No excuses for Kresinsky to drop that 90m now unless that was all bull after saying he never knew about Sullivans misdemeanours yet went into business again with him.
Can’t think where we have 190 million outstanding on previous purchases, surely selling clubs get at least a 30% upfront payment.
And of course if we owe a substantial amount on past players, they’ll also be a substantial amount owed to ourselves for sales
We made £190m in sales so even though payments will be staggered we should only be £30 m down which we will make in prize money and we have also massively reduced our wage bill.
Am not buying the poverty stories we are flush with spending capacity and we need to buy in January it picks up the teams energy to have quality additions joining and in this draining season that’s essential.