28 Comments

David Moyes will have zero transfer budget

West Ham David Moyes will need to work with zero transfer budget this summer knowing he will have to sell to buy to bring in new faces.

Sources close to the club have confirmed that there are no funds available due to the Hammers huge loss of income from season tickets, corporate hospitality and match income.

Limited stadium capacities will also have a dramatic financial impact on next season even if some supporters return.

Losses for this season are expected to be huge as a combination of the spending under the previous manager and director of football combined with the impact of the global pandemic.

Moyes has been authorised to sell luxury and fringe players within the current squad to fund new arrivals of a few new faces and the board are said to have high hopes for David Moyes next season.

The manager took time to find his best starting XI and put his stamp on the team, but his best is still to come.

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

28 comments on “David Moyes will have zero transfer budget

  1. Absolute Disgrace.

  2. Absolute joke. Passing the buck and taking the cheap option as always.

    • A simple question, why has a club of our size not won a pot since 1980 ( forget the daft Mickey Mouse Euro Cup we won some years ago) but the fan base, the history, the Academy and hence the players that have played for the club surely would suggest we should have been a top 10 club regularly. We have never been close to a title save 86 with Cottee and McAvennie banging in the goals for fun but even that was a one season job!
      I’m perplexed….there is a soft underbelly with The ‘ Irons’ and it needs to be sorted.

  3. If it looks like rubbish and sounds like rubbish then it’s usually rubbish, there is no reason unless the PL withhold funds why any team should be struggling to buy players. If we do have to sell, Anderson, Wilshere, Yarmolenko, Haller, Ajeti, Cresswell and Fredericks should all be candidates. FFP is obsolete so that excuse won’t wash. MP was given over £200m to spend Moyes should be given a minimum of £50m

    • Disagree, fans always think they know better, the Sky PL money plays the players wages. It is as simple as that, other income allows clubs to buy players, We are still paying for Pellegrini’s picks and will do for some time. Not an excuse just a fact but that project failed and no-one saw the pandemic coming.

      • Hi Sean, you are the man with the statistics and I trust them but if Sky and or the other Televised broadcasters withhold money when they have actually televised more games than they would have done if COV-ID never happened, am sure despite contractual dates there is a court case that could be initiated the the FAPL under some loophole or another to be paid their prize money, if not the football clubs can vote with their feet, sky are reliant on the FAPL for subscriptions. The FAPL if it chose too could set up its own television network it certainly has the money and the contacts. FFP has been proved to be a mockery and un-policeable so we can ignore it and play by the rules of the big clubs if we do that budget is irrelevant we can spend what the club is willing to put in.

  4. The real lack of investment by GSB is the issue here. Not fit to run this club, no crefible vision and no ability to execute. I pity Moyes he has to create from nothing, great support. I for one will now get off his back, he is not the issue the owners are

  5. Understandable. We won’t be the only ones I imagine.

    Should be plenty in the coffers once we rid ourselves of those who aren’t worthy. As you showed recently Sean, could be around £70. Not a bad pot to dip into

  6. This is going to be a tough summer across the whole league and anyone who spent part of this summers money in the January window like we did (prior to the pandemic financial hit) is screwed. We’ve basically spent money that no longer exists.

  7. Zero budget , what’s new 😂

  8. So much for reshaping the squad with the RB leipzig model in mind.
    Its pretty disgusting how poorly ran we are. We shouldn’t be in this position dip in to your pockets and make funds available.

  9. That is a joke. There are too many holes in the squad! We will get relegated if we don’t spend. We can’t go into a season with just cresswell and fredericks at RB, they are championship defenders now. Setting Moyes up to fail. No team in the prem should have a £0 transfer budget and be expected to be competitive in the prem.

  10. Getting the excuses in early boys.

    We didn’t spend this summer’s money in January. We spent the money made from last summer in January.
    After having gold and Sullivan tell us moving to the os would take us to the next level. Then recently say the ticket sales don’t make much anyway. Now it’s used as a reason to have zero budget. Despite the same broadcast revenue.
    Change the narrative to suite their needs when they like.

    Put it this way if this us true we will be in exactly the same position as this next season.

    • The accounts are public for all to see, no smoke and mirrors

      We overspent under Pellegrini and now we are pricing the price and Covid has made it worse

      We need to be financially sustainable

      • Sean – I agree with this: the Club is paying the price for overcommitting under Pellegrini, and there is a need to be financially sustainable. Unfortunately, the understandable frustration you’re seeing in these comments is ultimately the price to be paid for the ludicrous claims made by GSB about ‘next level’ football at the OS. Those claims will continue to resonate for years and years and years. The frustration that I feel comes from GSB backing the wrong horse: getting rid of Moyes in May 2018, replacing him with a complete incompetent and then overcommitting on transfer spending under Pellegrini. I was never a fan of Pellegrini, even in those heady days of Autumn and Winter 2018/19, when we were going well under him. GSB made an enormous gaffe in appointing him, on top of the very obviously bigger gaffe made in appointing Grant in 2011. Ultimately, the frustration lies with GSB remaining in place, which none of us can do much about. I could live easier with the lack of additional investment that their claims abut the OS move promised, if their decision-making was sound. Unfortunately, it’s not..

    • We are facing the biggest recession in world history and some moan about GSB. Forums can be so ridiculous.

  11. If this is correct, this is very disappointing.

    I must stress that am not an accountant or have detailed insight to financials,hence have made my broad view of the impact of this on a best effort basis.

    Match day revenue is down for the 5 home games without spectators equating to approx 26% of projected annual match day income ( based on 1 Cat A, 3 Cat B and 1 Cat C for the 5 remaining matches) . Match day revenue was around 27 mio for last season an average of 1.4 mio per match so down 7 mio plus year on year cost increases and we would incur unplanned incremental Covid related costs for the 5 matches.

    As all 9 of our post lock down matches were televised (assuming Aston Villa is shown live) we would have significantly increased facility fee broadcast revenue. I believe that in total 24 or 25 of our 38 Premier League matches would have been shown live with an average income over 1.2 mio per match (compared to 16 live in 2018/2019) so roughly 9.6mio up.. However the merit payment component will be lower as we finished 10th last season vs potentially 15th this so approx 9 – 10 mio down.

    So roughly it initially appears total broadcast revenue at should be flat, notwithstanding that the broadcast pool size increased from 2019 by 180 mio I’m uncertain if that’s per season or for the new entire 3 year deal…Either way overall there would be an increase in broadcast revenue which would offset or at least partially offset the match day revenue losses

    There are the refunds to the season ticket holders for the 5 home games and its difficult to assess this. I estimate approx 2.5 mio per game using GBP 46 per ticket * 54,000 which is band 3 adult price of a cat B game. this would be increased by corp hospitality (which is reportedly lower than previous years) and reduced by lower prices for over 65’s/ under 21 season ticket holders which are GBP 27 per ticket . So a ballpark estimate of 12.5 mio down

    Considering these income losses, I understand that transfer budgets probably will be lower for the majority of clubs, (except the mega rich) and there is the uncertainty when fans will be allowed to attend games which affects match day income and no decision on next seasons broadcasting

    However based on the above, I really struggle to understand why this should be zero for next season. For the 2019 season, we had a net transfer spend of 58 mio (per transfer markt). I would have expected at least 60% of this amount to be available also taking into account lower salaries as we moved many high earners during the last windows.

  12. I’m surprised we have a zero budget. We are still paying the transfers for Haller, Ajeti, Bowen, Soucek etc and we will have substantially less money coming in this season. I guess the only reason we aren’t having to sell to balance the books is due to the recent capital injection. I fully expect a number of premier and championship clubs will have to sell to survive.

  13. I would accept the zero budget scenario if the board committed to a new contract for Moyes now. As it stands, talking about a longer spell for a manager that has twice dug the club out of the brown stuff only “if the team is doing reasonably well by Xmas” smacks of deliberately setting the manager up to fail.

    Us fans can speculate and opine as much as we like on the finances but, in reality, we don’t have the full facts. So it becomes simply an issue of trust. The bottom line is that the vast majority of West Ham supporters ARE realistic and pragmatic and would accept that, in these new and highly problematic financial times, the club must cut its cloth accordingly.

    However, the board has to recognise that, right now, there is something of a credibility gap between them and the fanbase. Not immediately backing the manager with a longer-term contract while rumours of possible new managers are still flying around will only cause that gap to widen. The road ahead is difficult, sure, but the board either have a clear route map or they don’t. They and their manager are either on the same bus, or they’re not. Some clarity on this would be reassuring.

  14. yes yes yes recession Hugh, you can bleat on about that distraction if you wish, but that’s all it is.

    I don’t believe the TV revenue (aka the vast majority of the revenue) has changed for next season has it?

    Again, believe what you like, BUT if we really have ZERO transfer budget, we are only going to end up in yet another relegation battle.

    And you can take that to the bank.

    • Covid and the economic havoc it is causing is a distraction – I see! The fact that all financial analysts agree on my comment is irrelevant in a world where the government and every business is trying to get sorted along with every other football cluh I suppose. And the fact the sky money pays the wages may have gone unnoticed by you. Never mind I expect you are right 🙂

  15. Want to speak my mind but afraid Hugh will sue me .

    • Say what you like but if it’s a personal attack aimed at me , any member of the team, or the site itself it won’t see the light of day. We ain’t here to be abused and nor is any contributor

  16. D-Daves should sell – out of their depth and have been for a long long time.

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