“It makes no commercial sense to buy this club” says David Sullivan, who now owns, along with David Gold, 50% of West Ham United, an option on the other 50%, and strategic control.
A club in the Premier League, the golden calf of all the football leagues. In a well-connected area of London. With a huge fanbase. With the Olympics coming in 2 years. I’d be licking my lips at the prospect of buying into that, debts or no debts.
Perhaps the football bubble has burst and I have missed it. But from where I sit I see Premier League clubs that seem to be doubling or tripling in value and making their owners fortunes. For example, David Sullivan and David Gold bought Birmingham City for £1 and sold it for £80m.
With Duxbury gone, and Nani under serious threat, it certainly looks like the end of the ‘project’, at least in the form that we knew it up until now. Good riddance, say many. An idiotic decision, in my opinion.
One report lists Sullivan and Gold’s principal targets. Mathieu Flamini, Jo, Yakubu and Benjani.
I could have drawn up that list for free.
The same sort of high-wage high-price targets that Eggert Magnusson brought in at crippling expense to the club. Whether Everton want to part with their second-choice striker, or whether Benjani will be offered another £60k-a-week contract at 31, remains to be seen.
Ok, I am a dreadful old cynic – why can’t I be enthusiastic about the new owners? And in one respect I am – the situation clearly needed sorting out. But the soundbites today and the news coming from within the club fills me with dread – another total change of emphasis, style and direction is the last thing the club needed at this point.
