Stubbornness — on all sides

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

For as long as many of us can remember, West Ham have bounced between relegation fights and promotion pushes. In plenty of those seasons we got through because we stuck together and the place was loud when it mattered.This feels like one of those seasons where we could end up on the wrong side of the line. And if we’re honest, something around the club feels off.Since the move from Upton Park, I can’t help feeling that a section of the fanbase almost sees relegation as a punishment for Sullivan. But if that happens, the only people who really pay for it are the team and the supporters. A flat, divided crowd doesn’t help anyone. We’ve all seen on European nights that the London Stadium can be a great atmosphere when everyone’s at it.At the same time, it’s hard to know what Sullivan actually wants. He could probably have sold up for a big profit when we were pushing top six and doing well in Europe, but he didn’t. From the outside, it just looks like stubbornness on both sides.My kids don’t have the same attachment to Upton Park — they were too young. They just love West Ham as it is. Maybe that says something. Maybe those of us still hung up on the move need to accept it’s not changing, and maybe Sullivan needs to see that the relationship with a lot of the fanbase is worn out.Let the next generation just support the club without carrying all this baggage. Right now it feels like all of us — Sullivan and some of us older fans — are getting in the way.West Ham should be about what comes next, not just what’s gone.
 

 

[Massive Attack]

I think it is fair to say a lot of the heavily anti Sullivan fans wish we had stayed. 

Nah, just heavily anti-Shithole Stadium. 

How much are they paying you, 20k a year?

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

Stadium model, ownership debates and seat distances aside, it will be interesting to see if the need for points and the slight upturn in form lifts the mood a bit tomorrow against Man Utd. I was chatting to a pal the other day about that last night at Upton Park against them. I think it is fair to say a lot of the heavily anti Sullivan fans wish we had stayed. If we had, we probably would not have modernised in the same way and my kids might not enjoy it as much, but if I am honest there is a part of me that would love to be heading to Upton Park for this game tomorrow.

[Gary Strodders shank]

interesting chat. 

Do we consider that the reason most clubs own their ground is because they’ve historically had no other choice? I don’t think it’s a business model of choice, rather it’s been the only model available. 

Right now clubs have realised they can repurpose some parts of the asset they own to make more money (naming rights, hospitality, concerts etc). Which is great but ultimately my original thought was that geninue long term financial success in football ultimately comes from success in the pitch. I think that’s undeniable. 
The wealthiest teams have had the most successful footballing achievements. 

The risk for me with us is the sporting stuff should come before the risk stuff. Our leadership does not know how to make us successful at football. They’ve been here 15yrs and we are still looking at relegations every other year. Even with a basically free stadium. If you’re not good with pennies why would you be good with pounds?

So it’s incredibly risky to trust GSB with such a rebuild venture. I think it could seriously mean the club is no more. The only reason for the increased revenue from owning your ground is to ultimately invest in the playing staff and become a more successful club. I just don’t see GSB can do the second part at all. 

also, I still feel like there’s been an underestimation of how big an investment project doing what spurs has done is in central London. It’s immense. I can see why most level headed business people would only choose that option if they absolutely had to (spurs had to). I think Chelsea have been trying to do something similar for years now and they’re loaded. It’s not straightforward at all. Everton etc are on land worth about 2 quid. It’s not in the same ball park at all. 





 

Agree with most of this

Many non league clubs stadiums are owned by the local council on peppercorn rents. There are some monster clubs in non league now who operate on this basis so i wouldn't be surprised if there are more renters amongst the 92 than it seems at first glance. 

I think that West Ham negotiated a very good deal. We clearly have a competitive budget so it would be interesting to see what a more ambitious owner could do.  

With regard to non league clubs renting from local councils this can of course be advantageous financially but also as in the case of Gateshead who were denied promotion be very problematic if the authority will not give the length of lease required to meet league requirements

I believe the length of lease also determines the amount of funding. (Lottery and grants ) that can be tapped into to lay a 3G pitch for example.

Landlords of clubs at non league level can also be difficult to negotiate with and you simply don't have that long term security that owning your own ground brings.

There is also the dilemma of whether to invest in groundworks pitch drainage etc if you have a relatively short lease and may not get another.

Swings and roundabouts I guess 

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

interesting chat. 

Do we consider that the reason most clubs own their ground is because they’ve historically had no other choice? I don’t think it’s a business model of choice, rather it’s been the only model available. 

Right now clubs have realised they can repurpose some parts of the asset they own to make more money (naming rights, hospitality, concerts etc). Which is great but ultimately my original thought was that geninue long term financial success in football ultimately comes from success in the pitch. I think that’s undeniable. 
The wealthiest teams have had the most successful footballing achievements. 

The risk for me with us is the sporting stuff should come before the risk stuff. Our leadership does not know how to make us successful at football. They’ve been here 15yrs and we are still looking at relegations every other year. Even with a basically free stadium. If you’re not good with pennies why would you be good with pounds?

So it’s incredibly risky to trust GSB with such a rebuild venture. I think it could seriously mean the club is no more. The only reason for the increased revenue from owning your ground is to ultimately invest in the playing staff and become a more successful club. I just don’t see GSB can do the second part at all. 

also, I still feel like there’s been an underestimation of how big an investment project doing what spurs has done is in central London. It’s immense. I can see why most level headed business people would only choose that option if they absolutely had to (spurs had to). I think Chelsea have been trying to do something similar for years now and they’re loaded. It’s not straightforward at all. Everton etc are on land worth about 2 quid. It’s not in the same ball park at all. 




 

Agree with most of this

Many non league clubs stadiums are owned by the local council on peppercorn rents. There are some monster clubs in non league now who operate on this basis so i wouldn't be surprised if there are more renters amongst the 92 than it seems at first glance. 

I think that West Ham negotiated a very good deal. We clearly have a competitive budget so it would be interesting to see what a more ambitious owner could do.  

[threesixty]

Like Moyes, Sullivan lucked out by enjoying a once in a lifetime global pandemic where we benefitted greatly with playing with no crowds gaining European qualification and then the sudden inception of a new easy European competition. 

 

 

Absolutely.

[threesixty]

interesting chat. 

Do we consider that the reason most clubs own their ground is because they’ve historically had no other choice? I don’t think it’s a business model of choice, rather it’s been the only model available. 

Right now clubs have realised they can repurpose some parts of the asset they own to make more money (naming rights, hospitality, concerts etc). Which is great but ultimately my original thought was that geninue long term financial success in football ultimately comes from success in the pitch. I think that’s undeniable. 
The wealthiest teams have had the most successful footballing achievements. 

The risk for me with us is the sporting stuff should come before the risk stuff. Our leadership does not know how to make us successful at football. They’ve been here 15yrs and we are still looking at relegations every other year. Even with a basically free stadium. If you’re not good with pennies why would you be good with pounds?

So it’s incredibly risky to trust GSB with such a rebuild venture. I think it could seriously mean the club is no more. The only reason for the increased revenue from owning your ground is to ultimately invest in the playing staff and become a more successful club. I just don’t see GSB can do the second part at all. 

also, I still feel like there’s been an underestimation of how big an investment project doing what spurs has done is in central London. It’s immense. I can see why most level headed business people would only choose that option if they absolutely had to (spurs had to). I think Chelsea have been trying to do something similar for years now and they’re loaded. It’s not straightforward at all. Everton etc are on land worth about 2 quid. It’s not in the same ball park at all. 



 

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

“Sullivan has kept West Ham afloat, sure. But he's never truly elevated the club. He won’t be missed when he goes”

I agree with this 

[Massive Attack]

Like Moyes, Sullivan lucked out by enjoying a once in a lifetime global pandemic where we benefitted greatly with playing with no crowds gaining European qualification and then the sudden inception of a new easy European competition. 

[goose]

I’m calling massive beard on this ‘I own a football club’ business.

[southbankbornnbred]

I’ve been clear I’d prefer a change and as a fan I’d happily spin the wheel on someone more ambitious, but that still does not make him the great enemy some paint. He is a conservative and stubborn businessman who has overseen a largely stable fifteen years in a volatile industry. That is not exciting and it has limits, but it is not destruction either. He will always be defined by the stadium move and in truth most owners in that position probably press go on the same deal. The bigger failure for me has been not investing properly in the fan experience and infrastructure once the move happened. That is frustrating and short sighted but it is a long way from killing the club. Hopefully the next owner really focuses on the stadium and the matchday experience because the raw materials are there. The size, location and platform are strong and with the right investment the whole feel of the place can change. It is fair to want more without pretending the last fifteen years have been a disaster.

“Stable”?

We're currently in the relegation zone - and if we go down it would be the second time under Sullivan.

Sullivan’s time in charge of West Ham has been a strange mix of penny-pinching chaos, slow progress and one late silver lining. But I'm not sure "stable" is the right word.

His ownership style has been reactive, not visionary. For most of his tenure, he's run West Ham like a desperate small business – not an ambitious Premier League club. Short-term thinking has dominated: bargain transfers, panic buys and unemployed managerial changes driven more by mood than strategy.

Big promises (“next level,” “top six”!) have been routinely followed by underwhelming windows and glaring squad gaps.The club has more often felt like it was being managed to survive, never built to compete. There has been no clear footballing philosophy. Just cycles of hope, disappointment, repeat.

And the London Stadium move is a wound that may never fully heal. One of the most botched stadium transitions in European football history. Terrible atmosphere compared to a beloved old ground, endless rows with fans over seating, banners and policing. Years of PR disasters and fan alienation. Sullivan sold it as a leap forward. But for too many fans, the club was stripped of its soul for commercial convenience.

Sullivan’s relationship with fans has also been combative and tone-deaf. Public spats with supporters, dismissive programme notes, a constant sense that supporters were an inconvenience rather than the fabric of the club.

West Ham fans don’t just feel unheard – they often feel actively disrespected. Protests outside the ground haven’t been rare. That tells you a lot.

And the results were mostly mediocre until Moyes steadied the ship for a few years. A few top-half finishes, European qualification and, finally, a major trophy that papered over a decade of otherwise muddling through while he awaits his big payday. Then the wheels fell off again and we've had three poor, cheap unemployed managers in quick succession - all of whom are still on the wage bill.

Sullivan has kept West Ham afloat, sure. But he's never truly elevated the club. He won’t be missed when he goes. Except in his own mind. Tell that to him when you next hear from him.

[Massive Attack]

How much are they paying you to write this guff?

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

I’ve been clear I’d prefer a change and as a fan I’d happily spin the wheel on someone more ambitious, but that still does not make him the great enemy some paint. He is a conservative and stubborn businessman who has overseen a largely stable fifteen years in a volatile industry. That is not exciting and it has limits, but it is not destruction either. He will always be defined by the stadium move and in truth most owners in that position probably press go on the same deal. The bigger failure for me has been not investing properly in the fan experience and infrastructure once the move happened. That is frustrating and short sighted but it is a long way from killing the club. Hopefully the next owner really focuses on the stadium and the matchday experience because the raw materials are there. The size, location and platform are strong and with the right investment the whole feel of the place can change. It is fair to want more without pretending the last fifteen years have been a disaster.

[southbankbornnbred]

Meanwhile, we've been left with the worst fans' experience imaginable. A terrible, soul-less athletics stadium where the action is miles away and the curvature of the Earth gets in the way of your sightlines, a giant walkway in the middle of key stands, separating fans and ruining the atmosphere.

If as a football owner (which you say you are) you're happy with that - great. Take your support for that model to your board or team, sell your ground and enjoy your riches. But don't try to tell fans that's invariably the way it has to be and we should just accept it. We can see how it works elsewhere.

[southbankbornnbred]

The reality of what Sullivan (and other board members) has done is that he bought the club cheap, intended to move us from Upton Park to the Olympic Stadium all along, then essentially sat on his asset while the Premier League grew in stature and riches, then awaited a buyer so that he can make a couple of hundred million pounds on his investment.

He's essentially at the final stage of that now.

Fair play to him. But he's shat on the club, and the fans, while awaiting his reward. Don't come onto a fans' messagboard and infer that's a great model for West Ham fans. It has been great model for David Sullivan and other shareholders. IF they can find buyer.

[southbankbornnbred]

southbank

I think we’re just using flexible to mean different things. You mean commercial freedom to push revenues in the stadium. I mean financial breathing room. If your fixed costs are lower than others you can plan easier, start each season from a steadier base and it’s simply a lower stress club to run. Some clubs have to grow income just to reach that same point. Their upside might be bigger, but it comes with more risk and more uncertainty. In an unpredictable sport a stable cost base has real value. Just two ways of looking at the same picture.

 

 

But if all you want is low risk, just sell up and buy a bond. Don't pretend (as Sullivan does) to be the amazing businessman who can pull levers and produce magic. Football finance at Premier League level provides everybody with a solid base anyway - the TV income, which is huge. The real art is in then building on that by generating other revenues. That's what marks Aston Villa, for example, out from Burnley or Wolves. You seem to prefer the idea that West Ham shouldn't need not bother with all that because our overheads are comparatively low. But it leaves clubs with undynamic, risk averse owners who just want to sit on their asset (the club) and await a big pay day (a buy-out). Our owners haven't even identified a stadium sponsor even though we are allowed to keep a third of any deal. So we're not even maximising the few revenue streams we do have.

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

My wider point is I can see the logic behind a lot of Sullivan’s decisions. Keeping a long term stadium lease at around three million is good value when you compare it to ownership, maintenance and borrowing costs. He’s clearly conservative and risk averse. That isn’t exciting for fans, but from a business point of view where financial performance matters as much as results, it isn’t irrational either. We mentioned Villa earlier as the other side of the rope. Spending hard to drive success and grow revenues is great for momentum and belief, but it carries real risk if results dip. It’s exciting, but it’s not safe. I’ve never hidden that I’d personally prefer a more adventurous approach at West Ham. I just don’t think it’s fair to say there’s no logic in what Sullivan has done, even if you don’t love the style.

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

southbank

I think we’re just using flexible to mean different things. You mean commercial freedom to push revenues in the stadium. I mean financial breathing room. If your fixed costs are lower than others you can plan easier, start each season from a steadier base and it’s simply a lower stress club to run. Some clubs have to grow income just to reach that same point. Their upside might be bigger, but it comes with more risk and more uncertainty. In an unpredictable sport a stable cost base has real value. Just two ways of looking at the same picture.

[Sir Alf]

The stadium deal once heralded as a big advantage to West Ham has become a huge financial millstone and sees us falling behind our peers. Add relegation into the mix and it becomes obvious that Sullivan and Brady have sunk the club competitively and financially.  

There is no sugar coating it, the last 16 years of Sullivan owning the club, assisted by over promoted Brady, has been a disaster and ruined a once proud football club. 

[southbankbornnbred]

I don’t disagree that stadium investment can work if the revenue uplift really covers the cost, my only point is that the cash still leaves the club each year and football is unpredictable so flexibility has value. At our level sustainability depends on football income being spent on football because margins are tight and there are fewer safety nets, whereas bigger clubs usually have broader revenues and access to funding. That’s probably why I lean toward the more cash flow safe route West Ham have with their low fixed stadium costs, it just reduces risk in a volatile game and that’s the lens I naturally look through as a non league owner of a club that only spends what it earns. Albeit we’ve also purchased our own stadium from the council in recent years so I see both sides.

But it isn't more 'flexible' - that's what I genuinely cannot fathom about your stance.

We have little flexibility. We have one hand tied behind our back, because there is very little we can do now to significantly raise revenues such as stadium sponsorship (we still haven't even had a shared stadium sponsor in almost ten years), more from food concessions, bars/cafes around the ground and many other revenue raising ventures that other clubs - such as Newcastle, Villa and Everton - are entering into. Under the restrictive terms of the contract with what was the LLDC etc., we have little capacity to do that.

That is not financial flexibility under SCR etc. It's quite the opposite.

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

I don’t disagree that stadium investment can work if the revenue uplift really covers the cost, my only point is that the cash still leaves the club each year and football is unpredictable so flexibility has value. At our level sustainability depends on football income being spent on football because margins are tight and there are fewer safety nets, whereas bigger clubs usually have broader revenues and access to funding. That’s probably why I lean toward the more cash flow safe route West Ham have with their low fixed stadium costs, it just reduces risk in a volatile game and that’s the lens I naturally look through as a non league owner of a club that only spends what it earns. Albeit we’ve also purchased our own stadium from the council in recent years so I see both sides.

[southbankbornnbred]

PSR rules do not pay the bills, cash flow does. Stadium finance is still real money out of the club. I am genuinely struggling to understand the counter to that point. If tens of millions leave annually in interest and maintenance, how does that not affect what is comfortably spendable?

Because, as you know only too well (as the owner of even a small non-league club), the whole point is to run the club well to ensure that your (new and established) revenues outweight the cost of financing the stadium debt. It's not hard to comprehend that, and you DO comprehend that. You just seem to lean towards the rental model, despite its very obvious flaws.

Almost every major club in England attempts to do this in some way. But as you have seen recently, with Everton, Spurs and others, many clubs with new(ish) stadia are also wrestling with this. It is a far more common model than West Ham's. It was before the incoming SCR and, after it comes into force in the summer, it will be even more common. West Ham's stymying rental model now looks extremely restrictive. In fairness to the board, that's not something they could have predicted with great accuracy in 2016 because nobody saw SCR coming. But that's what they signed away.

And that's before we even get onto the "quality" of the stadium and the atrocious matchday experience.

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

Not Irish and not Sean. I’ll keep my club anonymous on here as it doesn’t really add to the discussion. I’m just a non league owner who takes an interest in football finance and how clubs try to balance the books.As a West Ham fan, with everything going on at the club, I was just interested in having the chat on a lively forum rather than one where it would quickly get dull.

[wils]

No, I’m not Sean.

Am I correct in thinking that you’re an Irishman?

[WhereDoesThisEnd]

No, I’m not Sean. I own a non league football club so I see some of this first hand, just at a much smaller scale and many millions and a considerable amount of steps below Premier League level. We deal with the same themes though, balancing cash, contracts, risk and performance, just with fewer zeros.From my side it is interesting rather than emotional. In my world football income has to cover football spend, but income jumps if you get success, so it is always a tightrope between being bold and being stable.Villa are a good example. They have been aggressive, and it has worked because results followed. If results dip, the model looks a lot riskier. That does not make it wrong, it just shows there are different ways to try and get to the same place.

[John Drake]

In the size of club stakes, West Ham have traditionally been grouped with clubs such as Aston Villa, Newcastle and Everton in a second tier behind the rich six. You can see how far West Ham have started to fall behind Villa and Newcastle by looking at financial results over the last few years. Much of their growth has been in Matchday and Commercial income where West Ham’s growth has been sluggish – and is constrained by the stadium deal. The numbers say second in terms of attendance but eighth or ninth when it comes to Matchday income. 

Of course, profitability cannot be ignored but that is a choice to a large degree depending on what the owners are prepared to commit to with additional investment. Villa have taken a very different approach which is serving them well right now. Invest in the squad, achieve (relative) success and increase revenues as a consequence. Villa’s revenues were once comparable to West Ham’s but the gap is now wide. They have an ambition that is lacking at West Ham. 

I will say again, the ownership vs rental is a red herring. It should be ownership versus operating control. 

Are you by any chance Sean Whetstone?