Suddenly there seems a possibility that a late sell – off might further reduce the strength of West Ham’s match day squad, ahead of the Championship kick off and the Hammers’ attempts to secure promotion at the first time of asking.
Not what we as fans were promised, when Kretinsky’s bold statement in June assured fans that there was no need to sell players to satisfy financial constraints.. and the main priority was keeping hold of key players.
It was largely that statement that convinced 50,000 season ticket holders to renew their seats. That and a sense of a new post-Sullivan positivity-fuelled era at West Ham.
Now Claret and Hugh reader “Alans_Devon_Shire” offers his own ‘take’ over the reason that Kretinsky’s planned injection of much needed cash has never materialised:
“The real problem is people not understanding the reality of the situation.
The whole issue has been caused by Amanda Stavely attempting to buy the Gold shares, which put a hold on the £90 million that would have been invested by DK. So if Stavely had not got involved, the £90 million would have been available at some point to subsidise the club’s summer spending.
The fact that DK has had to suddenly manoeuvre and change plans – and also wait 2 months to go through the pre-emptive process means it has affected absolutely everything.
Early in the summer, before Staveley’s hostile takeover got started
With the Golds seeing an opportunity to sell all of their shares and for a lot more, and the DK and Gold deal not occurring as planned, it means that DK wouldn’t be majority shareholder so in that situation, why would his £90 million investment occur as planned. The deal he had agreed to secure and stabilise our club was hijacked by Stavely and the Golds, so the blame doesn’t lie with DK, but with others.
As far as I’m concerned with the information I have, all DK has done is react to a situation that has been created by the greed of others” –
Claret and Hugh reader’s guest post by Alans_Devon_Shire
Hence the possible sell-off of additional players – Freddie Potts already having departed and now Malick Diouff likely to be the next – to fund transfers or, alternatively, further debt repayments in the absence of an injection from the Czech Sphynx.
With no new statement likely forthcoming from the club itself, the only way West Ham fans will know which is true will be to watch and wait to see if any of the promised high profile £20 million players actually land at London Stadium. No Parrott, Engels, Isidor or Franculino Dju, for example, and the answer will be self-evident.
If that happens and the Hammers ‘rebuild’ consists solely of more freebies and odds-n-ends, it could well be that Staveley’s bid has indeed sabotaged West Ham’s summer transfer window by preventing the every cash injection needed to re-invest big time in the squad.
Finally someone who tells it as it is. DK was stopped in his tracks by Staveley’s attempt to buy the shares, she has no real wealth but relies on her finance company to broker deals. DK has the billions, let him do what he set out to do. The club will be in a better place under DK, if Staveley gets her mitts on us it will be GBS all over again.
Hi Martin, I can’t agree with this sentiment mate. DK had 2 months to start the process to buy the gold shares but as far as we know he hadn’t taken that option up, he’d had the same amount of time to inject £90 million to help with liquidity but he hadn’t done that before staveley got involved last week so he had plenty of time to get the ball rolling and the indicators are that he didn’t do that. I honestly can’t work out what the plan is, I have serious concerns that something isn’t right but I have no evidence other than the distinct lack of any transfer business in as of today. Now it may change and I hope it does, but my fear is we will see mav, Diouf, taty, magassa and other fringe players going out and replacing them with the likes of vardy. I genuinely hope I’ve got this wrong. Cheers
No worries, its a reader piece so I didn’t write it, thanks for your different, still courteous opinion.
Sorry Martin but this isn’t correct. Kretinsky could have purchased the Gold family shares upon agreement back in June, thereby heading off Staveley st the pass. Secondly when Staveley did bid, Kretinsky and the board made a statement to confirm this action had no bearing whatsoever on our transfer plans. More deflection away from the real source of our problems Im afraid.
Dont apologise to me.. its a guest post by a reader
Not true. It would still have needed to go through the 2 month pre-emotion -rights process
Staveley throwing a spanner in the works has surely put a stop to Kretinsky injecting £90-100m into the club for transfers. This is a mess
Oh well.
Make do and mend until January I guess.
Until then, freebies, loaners and academy players will suffice.
Oh and the odd cheap one 🙄
It’s not necessarily the greed of others, although this post is totally correct in so far as what has happened and its impact. If Kretinsky was going to buy 9% or so of the shares for a set amount but Gold really would have liked him to buy them all, well, if Staveley comes along bidding to buy them all and for much more per share than Kretinsky was offering (Premier League money, remember?) any business person would decide to sell them to Staveley.
Claret and Hugh’s recent post that stated a club contact said this wouldn’t affect transfer plans this window couldn’t have been further from the truth (not stating it’s your fault, rather that of whoever your ‘contact’ is). Of course it affects transfer plans, it affects the entire financial landscape of the club. That £90m Kretinsky was going to put in is now likely to be eaten up, plus more, by the fact he has to buy all 26.1% of Gold’s shares otherwise Staveley will take them, something he didn’t envisage earlier in the summer. Still, wouldn’t an astute business person have seen this as a possibility and made plans for it? It’s not as if Staveley’s interest would have been a surprise.
Saul – The board said “West Ham would like to assure supporters that the day to day running of the football club is in no way affected by this situation” If it clearly impacts transfers, then the board has misled supporters again haven’t they?
That is about it, and remember how the last female did for the club. I say keep her out at all costs.
Wow. Not a bit sexist. And as David Sullivan is a male, should we disallow men from involvement in the club too?