Often whenever we cover matters pertaining to ownership and club funding, there are negative comments from readers who seem to have an anti-West Ham Board agenda: I usually take all of the detractors’ comments with a pinch of salt, especially those decrying the investment of the current board. It is after all easy to spend “other people’s money” and I have never met a supporter who thinks their club has spent enough on players.
However I confess that the report just published today from the NYtimes.com/athletic has made me reconsider my own viewpoint, coming as it does from a pretty ‘unbiased’ source with no obvious agenda. Listed today in full is the eye watering amount of money each of the 20 Premier League owners have invested in their football clubs.
I have listed the top six and also highlighted West Ham’s position in the ‘spending league table’: Fourth and fifth spots will surprise you, with the almost £1.8 billion having been poured in by two clubs alone proving no guarantee of success on the pitch:
1. Chelsea – takeover price £2.5 billion 2022 – owner investment £146 million – total £2.65 billion
2. Manchester City takeover price in 2008 £200 million, owner funding £1.3 billion, total £1.32 billion
3. Arsenal Purchase price £1 billion. Owner investment £259 million – total £1.25 billion
4. Fulham Purchase price 2013 £150 million, owner investment £788 million – total £938 million
5. Everton Purchase price 2016 £128 million funding since £750 million. Total £878 million
6. Manchester Utd Purchase Price 2005 £800 million (27% buyout this year @ £1.25 billion) £158 million funding since, total £845 million
15. West Ham United Purchase Price 2010 50% £50 million. Owner funding £156 million. (27% share sold to Kretinsky 2021 for £180 million ) total £206 million -Much of the Kretinsky payment went on paying back directors loans according to the report.
Kretinsky’s 27% share cost him £180 million at West Ham
The take out then – would seem to be that spending billions doesn’t guarantee success so those forever knocking the West Ham board for not spending are missing one point: The club is so far steering clear of any points deductions or relegation penalties which many of the others are about to face (unless your name is Manchester City in which case a determination just never gets any nearer).
So, by todays ‘billions’, yes the Hammers suffer from under investment – but being well run financially, whether supporters agree or not, the club also steers clear from penalties owing to financial irregularities. You only have to look to Everton’s problems or – most recently to France and see Olympic Lyonnais’ forced relegation to tier 2- as a salutary tale.
And Spurs owners have spent less than West Ham, just for the record, occupying 16th place with owner Daniel Levy overseeing £194 million of investment. And remember, I didn’t create the figures before you take issue. Phillip Buckingham at nytimes.com/athletic is the author.
That league table in full:1/Chelsea, 2/ Man City, 3/Arsenal, 4/Fulham, 5/ Everton, 6/ Man U, 7/Aston Villa, 8/Newcastle, 9/Brighton, 10/Leicester, 11/Liverpool, 12/Crystal Palace, 13/Wolves, 14/ Bournemouth, 15/West Ham, 16/Tottenham, 17/Southampton, 18/Nottingham Forest,19/Brentford, 20/Ipswich
Football is the only business I’m aware of where the customers are happy for it to lose money and rely on the private wealth of the Directors to cover the losses. When people talk about the Directors “investing” most of the time what they mean is a “charitable donation”. Call me old fashioned but I much prefer the West Ham business model of being well run, to many others that we see.
Well run businesses appoint good management. We continue to fail miserably at this.
The anti-board sentiment is due to the dire managerial appointments.
When you hire managers that play boring football like Allardyce, Moyes and JLo it shows a real lack of true consideration to the fans.
Add in Avram Grant and Pellegrini who both were not suitable and relegation that’s what cause the fans to kick off!
As for spending, it’s the amount wasted on players often via Sully’s preferred agents again that are not fit for purpose.
Bit of a non-story really. Blame it on the 14 years of last government and Brexit. Makes no sense to analyse any of these figures. Trump will make the difference.
Is your name Dan? 🤣🤣🤣
Trump certainly will make a difference – a negative one. He’s likely to f**k the world up.
You can’t really compare Tottenham as they have just built a £1.2bn stadium which is probably the best in the world. Also, the main issue is losing out on players and managers because the owner won’t pay a few million more to meet the asking price or pay a manager release clause cost which is minimal in the grand scheme of things. It won’t improve until the club has new ownership whenever that will be
Couldn’t agree more about Spurs and their stadium. As much as I miss Upton Park and the atmosphere, if we had built and owned a ground suitable for football the fans would have less of a disconnect than we do now.
No one has really complained that we’re not spending at City or Chelsea levels.
In windows where we’ve had a spend up, money has often been spent poorly. Felipe Anderson, Haller, Scammaca, Cornet, Kehrer, Wilshere, Nasri, Carlos Sanchez, Roberto, Fullkrug etc. All came during windows where we were ‘having a go’ rather than pleading poverty.
On the ‘anti-board agenda’ if our owner would stay out of the footballing side of things and let his appointed staff in these areas get on with it, without interference, they’d likely cop a lot less stick and quite possibly have a footballing operation on par with the financial side of the club that you were quick to lament.
Instead it’s allegedly several parties getting a few picks each in the transfer market (including the owner himself), always managers plucked from the dole queue that aren’t considered ‘too risky’ and the owner’s agent mates having far too much influence. Its all very unprofessional and the reason the perception exists that we’re run like a circus.
Hiring Tim and ditching Moyes gave us hope we were finally taking a better approach to transfers and style of play.
Hiring JLo and signing Soler and Rodriguez just proved nothing has changed.
Sully would get respect by removing himself from football operations (transfers & managers) as his record speaks for itself.
Aston Villa have proved it is possible to rise from relegation and achieve Champions League and play good football. Monchi and Emery aligned has got them there.
Given the fact how long they’ve been at the club and how little they’ve invested into the club it makes for terrible reading, then consider a huge portion of the investment from Kretinsky went back to gold and sullivan makes this look even worse.
The length of time at the club is a very valid point.
Whether the repayment of Directors’ Loans makes it worse depends whether the stated investment from the owners is net (IE after repayment of investment from Kretinsky’s share purchase monies) or gross (IE before repayment from Kretinsky). If former then S&G invested far more than the £156m, if latter then far less.
Well said. Kretinsky’s investment went to Gold and Sullivan, not on state of the art training facilities or players.