Hammers takeover: Foreign owners eye lower leagues
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.