Jack Sullivan, son of West Ham chairman David Sullivan, has revealed that Hammers director of football Tim Steidten was interviewed separately by both Daniel Kretinsky and David Sullivan himself.
Jack was speaking on the highly recommended Eventful Lives podcast, produced by West Ham fan and entrepreneur Dodge Woodall.
During the 80-minute long interview, the former West Ham women’s team chairman spoke about his time at the club and revealed some details about the new infrastructure at the London Stadium.
Woodall asked Sullivan whose idea it had been to recruit Steidten as director of football, to which he replied, “It was a board decision.”
Jack then explained that Kretinsky interviewed Steidten, and the senior Sullivan eventually came to the decision to appoint the German to run football operations at West Ham.
The revelation provides an intriguing insight into the Czech billionaire’s involvement in the club, which is often reported as being minimal. However, if he was involved in the identification and recruitment process of Steidten, it would appear that he is far more engaged in the decision-making process at the club than we had been led to believe.
The story matches up with rumours that persisted at the time which suggested that Kretinsky was unhappy with the money wasted on Gianluca Scamacca in particular and wanted to implement safeguards to stop the club haemorrhaging money.
Congratulations to Dodge on an excellent interview with Jack, which is well worth a listen if you haven’t done so already.
Hardly a surprise that Steidten was a Kretinsky appointment. Getting in someone like Steidten is far too forward thinking for Sullivan who A: Couldn’t stand not having full control, and B: Still thinks football is being played in 1992. The only way West Ham would ever be fixed is if Sullivan and his family went.
Another example of our private club information being spouted-out to a so-called fan who has no right to know anything about our club.
We are a shambles when it comes to professionalism. NO CLUB tells anybody and everything about how their club is run apart from West Ham.
Like father like son: cannot keep their big mouths shut and it fuels how other clubs know how to hurt us on and off the pitch.
Utterly embarrassing. There is no hope for us while this goes on.
I remember reading at the time that it was Kretinsky who wanted to bring in a director of football in the first place. It was Kretinskys idea so makes perfect sense that he would also be the one to interview Steidten.