So the next question is: Are the current round of protests against the West Ham United going to work?
The only answer to that is that they MIGHT!
Another is planned for the Southampton game on February 29 although there will be a load of very angry words spoken between now and then via social media should results show no sign of turning around.
The latest financial position – as we understand it – is that there will be £40 million required in the summer to keep the club afloat and that will of course be a great deal bigger if we have dropped into the Championship.
Fan pressure on the board is unquestionably having an effect and if a genuine, good buyer came in it now has to be more than likely David Sullivan would listen.
The reality is that no club has to be put up for sale – any interested party can bid at any time…only time will tell if that is going to happen.
The irony is that it may take a drop into the Championship makes it far more likely when the club’s value drops and new buyers can plough additional money into the squad.
In the meantime we can expect the protests to continue which can only put the board under more pressure and with chief shareholder Sullivan now 71, rule nothing out!
Well.
Either way, it looks like your mates are going to have to dip into their billions eh Hughie boy?
Mates? LOL…Blimey – bit of a stretch Steve
Would like to imagine a place where we have a long term strategy that builds us in the right direction, there hasn’t been that despite the undoubted attempts by the current board. The reality is this board are not prepared to put the sustained amount of investment in that is required to get us there quickly so what are the other options ?
They have no idea how to make a club successful . Training ground is poor. Their business model has holes in it. They bring individuals in , not players that can fit a particular system.
Pellegrini asked for a decent winger and an offensive midfielder. His vision was to play with 2 wingers and one striker. What he never knew was how slow and technically poor everyone else was. Wrong manager , wrong players in for what they had around them. Poor owners who have no clue after 10 plus years here.
Have to say Joe Cole’s assessment on bt sport yesterday was spot on!! ( you can find it on you tube) talk about how it is at west ham, for me was the truth laid bare no holds barred ??
I’ll second that!!
Half the annual rent earned yesterday just from gate receipts. Imagine what half-way competent owners could achieve with a basis like that!
Is this the £40m ,Sullivan and Gold had earmarked to take out of the club in loan repayment plus interest owed ?- because,if it is not,it’s a hell of a coincidence.
Comapnies House website – check accounts.
Hi Hugh, are you able to explain further the £40m figure that is required to keep us afloat? Is this £40m over and above budgeted revenues next year? Ie we need to sell a player or owners need to invest cash? If so, this brings both their football judgement and business acumen into further question. How could anyone believe the squad was strong enough at the beginning of this season (lack of strikers being the obvious example) that further investment was not required this summer. The failure of the team has brought this need for investment to now.
Look at the accounts mate. Whenever I try to explain things from that perspective I become a board loving excuse maker. It’s all in there.
£25m net spend this year. A reduction of aroubd £400k a week in wages. So even if accounts published show a loss for last year, I am sure the profit for this year will be in excess of £50m.
Transfer their loans into equity, that way like most club owners they won’t have to take interest. They must be sitting on at least a £200m profit on their investment so any money they need to invest will not generate a loss to them personally just a reduction in a massive gain
Check accounts
Totally right we hear all the spiel about how much they have lost and all the accounts and stuff like that but there is always a way round it ..whether illegal or not they would never show all there cards its bull sh??
Board and Moyes seem to be planning for relegation. Allowing Cullen and Diangana to stay on loan, when clearly they could be part of squad instead of Lanzini, Sanchez etc. Then allowing Holland and Coventry to follow.
Sell Diop, Anderson, Haller, Rice release Sanchez and Zabaletta and they will be quids in with relegation. And have ready made replacements in the youngsters with lower league experience and Hugil to bring in
Will do.
Sean will later – I’m not financial really Martin
This is what appeared earlier in March 2019 “In their latest published accounts, West Ham confirmed they spend £89.5m last summer and while that is not all paid up front it has left a sizeable hole in the club finances together with an increased wage bill way beyond the £106.6m reported last season.
Club insiders have hinted that these seasons losses could be between £25m and £30m by May when the club’s financial year ends and the following season could see losses in excess of £40m if nothing is done to stem spending.
This has all been said before and somehow in the past
we have managed to squeeze out of it and end up
mid table
The problem I have now is I genuinely don’t see that happening and protests for me won’t work the reason why
is because we have players in this squad world class
players I’m talking about who just do not want to play
for us the shirt or the cause there are players in our squad
who feel it’s beyond them to want to fight against the
possibility of relegation
Look at this from sullys point of view he gets anyone
of any quality in the January window they will definitely
have a clause in there contact that they can walk if we go down or be sold when the first half sensible offer comes in
I do blame the board here my point is they left to late to get rid of pelle now moyes in my opinion will not have enough time to get any new players if they do come in to get them up to speed big problems ahead in my view
Which is what Joe Cole was saying!! there are players that come to west ham for the money and the London night life and bright lights not really knowing what fans expect of them (that they might have to work for there money to get the fans respect) and all the previous managers and the board keep buying random signings rather than well investigated signings that would work for the clubs long time future rather than cheap quick fix solutions with players only coming to our club in his words ” coming to West Ham for a holiday ” so the board need to have in place a structured buying policy as say Liverpool’s they target a player over months to see if they can fit in to their system and surroundings like they have with there most recent signing at the beginning of a window, so the players have already bedded down by the end of any window ? All well run clubs have a process like that in place . The way West ham buy don’t seem to do this its very random with signings or freebies ? They need more scouts and backroom staff to access on any players suitability to join a CLUB like ours and do more background checks to see if the bright lights of London don’t come first before actually playing for West ham????
I love Joe Cole, but saying “players that come to west ham for the money” makes you wonder why he went to Chelsea’s bench!
We got relegated so he got sold in a fire sale by previous owner as did all the talent that we had that year? They could not afford his wages agent got him the best deal away from the Hammers Defoe was the only one to put in a transfer request on the last day when we got relegated
Hugh, How much is supposed to be available for this window?
Why didn’t WH bid for Haaland from RB Salzburg? Dortmund got him for 20million-the guy’s on fire-look at his stats. Maybe our lot just thought we’ve got no chance of landing him. Could also be there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Don’t know
Hugh
I didn’t join this site to look at the accounts myself. You need to look at them and explain everything to me please.
Thanks
I have much to do – it’s on the site elsewhere – use the search engine Wembley. By explaining I merely get disbelieved by some so why bother
arrogant
It’s all on the site – there’s a search engine mate
Seriously wake up. We are a mid table premier league club that is involved in a relegation fight and your throwing around things like why didn’t we get Haaland the biggest prospect in European football with all of Europe’s elite chasing him. Do you seriously think we would stand a chance in hell of getting him.
On what planet would one of the best youngsters in the world join our shambolic club? He would have laughed at us
We didnt bid as we only have one scout, and Haaland probably wasnt looked at. We are a shambles from top to bottom. IF we managed to stay up, MASSIVE investment is a MUST in a new training facility, scouting system and squad. I dont see the current board dipping into their personal wealth to build and save the club that they supposedly support.
I thought it was once believed on here that protests didn’t work? I’m genuinely interested what now makes you think they might, Hugh. That’s not a criticism btw, I’m truly interested in the potential change of heart. I personally don’t see how it’s going to make a difference. As you once said, if they don’t have the money they don’t have the money. And again, you once mentioned that the plan is to pass the club down to Jack and his brother so selling doesn’t seem to be in the plans either.
I’ve written it in the story Saul
Simple answer NO! we are more like the TITANIC, sinking! This is OUR CLUB! most of us will still be here in the future! owners come and GO!
We won’t be stopped Hugh no matter how many articles you print for them saying it win’t Work
If there are not significant signings this week next Saturday is going to be very very very toxic
Did I say it wouldn’t work. NO! Please try to read what I say accurately
You did on Thursday in your article?
Yep and the Gtardian, Telegraph, S Mirror and many more – called freelancing …what do you come here for?
If they have lost 40m off a 200m turnover despite only spending 25m on transfers frankly they are inept, totally incompetent and still need to go
Recent accounts mean nothing because they dont know how to distribute funds to run a club competently.Whilshire and Sanchez back up for the midfield? Really? 150 grand a week wasted. Letting 3 strikers leave and campaigning a season with 1 main a striker and an unknown kid. Midfield problems growing early they loan out Cullen. Back up for Fabby was coco the clown.Back up for right back is a 35 year old veteran.
The team needs help because its clear they havent got it in them to fight ANOTHER relegation battle. They are mentally scared.
We are the 18th richest club in the world. On the pitch it looks like we are the 300th.
Managers fail. Players go the same way every season. Managers , players or owners
fault? World class stadium with a world class team is what that shouted.
Our traditional home was taken and now we have owners that have no idea what to do next. Tick Tock Tick Tock.
Getting a bit of stick there Hugh ? I always enjoy your articles. I was there yesterday we were poor Arjeti at least tried G & S did save us but I just think that we always try to do stuff on the cheap. Pellegrini’s guy bought poorly look at Roberto talking of keepers if Fabianski gets fit and stays fit we might just stay up. The thing about your team is that we cant just go and support someone else. We are like a bloke stuck in a marriage with a women who gives nothing back. Hoping to stay up.
Don’t think the protest will do any good as the board have already had your money from season ticket sales, money is all they are interested in. The only way they will take notice is if people do not renew season tickets next year.
How neutrals see them from sky this mornin
“They’re not taken seriously any more,” he told presenter Jacqui Oatley. “If you think about the major players in European football then the owners just aren’t taken seriously as football people. And that’s a huge issue.
“We talked about culture previously and there is a culture that basically everybody’s got their hands in the till. The players are there for a pay check, the managers are there to do a couple of season to buff up their CV.
“There is no long term thinking. If you go from Moyes, to Pellegrini, back to Moyes, what is the long-term plan, what’s the vision there? There isn’t one.”
Meanwhile The Telegraph’s Matt Law highlighted the club’s sheer lack of depth with regards to a support mechanism behind the playing squad. “They probably have the worst training ground in the Premier League,” he said. “And I think, at the moment, they’ve only got one scout.
“When David Moyes came back he wanted to bring Stuart Pearce – who’d done a good job before – with him. It was vetoed because he’d dared to criticise the board on a radio station.
“He’s got one member of the backroom staff that he’s brought in, Alan Irvine, because Alan Stubbs turned them down. He’s got no backroom staff, it’s just a shambles, an absolute shambles.”
“It’s being run like a fruit stall”: Liew and Law slam West Ham’s board
And Law also suggested that David Sullivan and David Gold’s primary reason for buying a majority share of West Ham was the lure of the Olympic Stadium.
“They tried the same thing at Birmingham,” he added. “They wanted Birmingham Council to build them a stadium and they wouldn’t. They did nothing to St Andrew’s, which looks like something out of the 1960s and is falling down. They didn’t invest in any infrastructure, the whole thing fell apart.
“If they were to go down [with West Ham], that whole club could just fall apart.”
As Craig Benee points out above, quoting from the Sky TV discussion this morning, Sullivan and Gold, and Brady are seen as a joke. That’s why we never get any players who will make a difference. They don’t want to come and work. The ones that do come are here for the wages and the London ‘cachet’, as Joe Cole said yesterday.The training ground -with its portacabins is laughable for the [supposedly] 18th richest club in the worlds !! Simply put the owners are a pair of clueless chancers who don’t have a clue how to run a football club – as they proved at Birmingham. West Ham = a fruit stall. No plan, no vision, no expertise. That’s about it. Creepy owners who flog stroke books and dildos, and who flogged off the Boleyn for peanuts. Research what these guys have been doing to the club, as Hugh Southon says above.. I remember the Poruguese owner laughing at West ham, saying that even their fans call them the dildo brothers….
You can see it here.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1221382447859933184
👍👍👍
Bang on
Although i don’t always agree with some of your articles hugh i have never seen you as the boards “patsy” and i think you get some unfair stick for that.
Going back this subject of ownership i thought you wrote something previously that they wasn’t allowed to sell until 2023.?
They can sell whenever they like. It’s only that if they sell before March 2023 then they have to pay a percentage of what they get to E20 as part of the stadium deal.
Will they work? They already are by publicly exposing the deep unhappiness. The fact blogs like this and the wider media are covering it will cause embarrassment and reputational damage for the owners – something no owners ever like.
How they react to that is a different matter – but the protestors know they are piling on the pressure.
We as supporters of this great club deserve better than these clowns and bit by bit they have revealed themselves to be incompetent at the very Best.
They are WAY out of their depth being in charge of a football club as anything bigger than a market stall was always going to present problems.
If Tesco’s make a price PROMISE they are held to account and expected to abide by their PROMISE!
GSB……… You Incompetent FOOLS, your time is up……. P*** Off.
ALL that we have IS the right to protest and we MUST do that until they’re gone. They’ve been sussed, Not only by our supporters, the press and fans up and down the country, but also across Europe where the West Ham brand has taken a Beating and be made to look Cheap and Nasty.
I ALWAYS suspected Payet had come to this conclusion and wanted out due to the promises made to him and whilst what he did was out of order, I still don’t think we’ve heard the full story.
I don’t think anyone ever ‘promised’ anything. I think we’ve just got ourselves so wound up that we think they ‘promised’. Can anyone look up the actual words used? I bet there were lots of ‘hope, want and like to’s’ in there, but I don’t think anyone ever ‘promised’.
An excerpt from the Talksport interview with David Gold – 18th Jan 2020
“There are PROMISES you know you can deliver and there are PROMISES you hope you can deliver, and we shouldn’t be lambasted because we failed in some of those PROMISES.
“Those PROMISES still exist and we PROMISE to do the absolute best we can, and I feel that every day we’re doing the best. We’re not leaving stones unturned – we’re doing everything we can to continually improve this football club.
Yep, you’re right. Absolutely no mention of the word PROMISE in there fella 😂😂
You’d think he would’ve learnt from the ‘apparent’ poor use of terminology used 10 years earlier.
Let’s not split hairs, but I think you’ll find the promise was wrapped up in the move to the London Stadium, which is why Most supporters see things the way I do.
IF the club is making a £40m loss then too many people have their hands in the till. Only a couple of weeks ago the club were assessed as the 18th richest in the world. The interest rates paid on the director loans are well above commercial lending rates, and the salary package and bonus paid to Karen Brady are extortionate.
There is no strategy or plan. Take the managerial changes from Grant to Allardyce to Bilic to Moyes to Pellegrini to Moyes again. No continuity in back room staff, scouting, playing philosophy etc. Each manager leaving after a series of leaks and undermining.
The youth system has improved in terms of U-23 performance but not to the extent we are seeing more players coming through to the first team. Zola was playing Tomkins, Noble, Hines, Sears and Stanislas when the two Daves arrived . Admittedly three of these did not cut the mustard at Premier level. In the ten years since only Rice and Grady have established themselves in the team and the training ground is an embarrassment.
We continually invest stupid sums in players with poor injury records – Carroll, Whilshire, Yalmemenko, etc
With one exception (the year before last) our net spend is extremely low. This year we reverted to type with Obiang, Arnautovic, Oxford, Byram, Perez, Fernandez, Chicarito, sold for fees totalling £48m plus significant squad reduction with Carroll, Adrian, etc all going.
The move from the Boleyn was sold on a lie. No sign of the promised champions league football and overtaken by a series of better run clubs.
The Daves made money out of Birmingham on the cheap and want to do the same at West Ham
In a way they deserve the diminished asset they have created
Lets get Elon Musk (is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX; CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.) He could put Sullivan, Gold & Brady in a Tesla, strap it to a Falcon 5 Heavy rocket and send it to the outer limits of space. Never to be seen a gain. Come on Elon buy West Ham United.
Found this article from the guardian dated 20/01/10 just after they took over the club.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/jan/20/west-ham-david-sullivan-gold