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Hammers takeover: Foreign owners eye lower leagues

It must be the international break because once again the Hammers takeover stories begin!

But should it need repeating let’s do so: David Gold and David Sullivan are going nowhere and if anybody needs any serious confirmation of that look towards the Womens’ team and what’s going on there.

Jack Sullivan will be the next Chairman of West Ham United with no doubt an input from David Gold’s daughters and successful business women Jacqueline and Vanessa.

Make no mistake, young Jack is the apple of his family’s eye and, in fairness, is making something of a success of the Womens’ team – a job handed him by his father as a preparation for him to take over the club at some point.

Sullivan senior is now 70 years of age and DG is 83 – change is around the corner at some point but it has always been the plan that West Ham United will remain ‘in the family’ rather than selling out to the Saudi Royal family or whatever.

And the reality is that Premier League football clubs are no longer the big attraction they once were with Championship outfits far more likely to benefit from a takeover. This is because they are far cheaper to buy thus leaving chunks of money available to build squads.

Just look at Newcastle, Mike Ashley has been unable to sell his club for £300m despite being on the market for over a year. The suggestion that there is a queue of billions waiting to buy the Hammers is misguided.

There is the added problem on the horizon that such as Sky – which recently revealed its losses had tripled in the last financial year – may not have the same amount of funds to plough into the next deal.

Already we have Amazon picking up coverage and the general view is that the coverage of football will become more and more “fractured.” Eventually hopefully clubs will grasp the nettle, opt out and instead offer on online season tickets to watch club dedicated sites and live matches.

The Premier League in reality is becoming a less sensible business option than it once was and there are few these days – if any – ready to over millions and billions when other once great clubs are waiting to be reborn at much cheaper prices.

A recent rumour suggesting that minority shareholder Trip Smith was building an American consortium to take-over the Hammers seems very far fetched. It was even suggested in one strand of the online rumour that former Microsoft founder and billionaire Paul Allen could be part of a consortium despite dying 13 months ago.

Just a word to those out there who would like to believe otherwise – neither this, or any other blog or poll we run – was or is, requested by the board and should that happen at any time we’ll let you know.

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

7 comments on “Hammers takeover: Foreign owners eye lower leagues

  1. How very depressing mediocrity guaranteed. If this is true time to give up season ticket.

  2. How very depressing David. So glad not all football fans feel that way. Especially those fans we saw in their glory last week in the FA Cup. Little clubs whose fans are right behind them – no matter what! Support not measured by the size of their spend – often zero – just the love of the club! That’s the way it used to be! Sadly not any more. Football’s loss imo.

    • Hugh, seriously, how can you be so categorical about this unless you are quoting them?

      I hope you are wrong for so many reasons.

      • Because I’ve been around the club long enough and had enough conversations to know the score. But you don’t have to believe it. No Iam not quoting them at all but it’s all very self evident my friend

  3. I’ll try with another comment, in hope it won’t be moderated.
    Why can this speculation be so categorical denied?
    We can all hope it true.

  4. Our club is worth more than the barcodes thanks to the deal of the century, if the right offer comes in and new owners with deep enough walletts the club will be sold, everything has a price. I think the owners have done a good job and whether current league position says so or not have helped us build a squad capable of qualifying for Europe, it’s easy to blame them but MP and the players have to accept responsibility for the dip in form, the owners (unless there is something not being shared publically) stay away from the first team squad and footballing decisions.

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