West Ham doesn’t have a magic money tree

There is a common misconception that rich Premier League clubs have unlimited cash available from their rich billionaire owners.

Most Premier League clubs don’t have huge cash reserves in the bank, what they have they often spend in the transfer windows.

As West Ham latest financial account reveal the club’s outgoings are over £14m per month!

West Ham shareholders have recently injected £30m of cash in a rights issue but that funds just two months of wages and bills.

The sale of season tickets this time of year usually brings in around £23.5m of cash flow which is now being sorely missed.

The season ticket refunds could cost West Ham up to £8m if everybody claimed it as cash and ticket revenue of £27m for next season is also threatened with a likelihood that it too could start behind closed doors in late August or early September.

Billionaires and multi-millionaires don’t tend to have large cash reserves in their bank accounts, they tend to be asset rich but cash poor as they make their money work for them.

In Sullivan’s case, outside of his West Ham shares, much of his wealth is tied up in his vast commercial property portfolio which has taken a nosedive in this global health crisis as well as many retail renters going into administration and demand for retail property failing.

Gold’s wealth outside his 35% shareholding of West Ham comes from Ann Summers which has been equally hit by the shutdown of no essential shops since March.

To suggest both have tens of millions in the bank ready to bail out West Ham forever would be a brave assumption to make.