The dust may not have settled on a momentous day in the history of West Ham, but are we experiencing the beginning of the end of David Sullivan’s control of the club.
Maybe, but it will be a time yet before the 'No more BS' fans' protest gets its final trophy. I read with amusement this week that someone suggested the fans red card protest had got nowhere, then within hours four directors have now quit.Karren Brady has resigned as vice chair and Sullivan now finds himself backed into a corner, almost checkmate you could say, as he now has Daniel Kretinsky as his new joint chair and the pair now having equal share holdings.
You could try to say that the fans have had no impact on what has been an intriguing shuffling of the deckchairs of a sinking ship, but a persistent, defiant section of our support have made the playing field decidedly unpleasant for the multi-billionaire mob who occupy the posh seats, as my dear old dad would have said.
Nobody has any doubt who should feel unwanted. |The fans have been making their views clear on every away day I’ve been on since the season started. These guys have my total admiration. They may not be as financially savvy as some, but they know bullshit when they see it, and they wanted the perpetrators gone. And quickly.
Maybe the message got through. Maybe the share shuffle - that was as near a coup as you can get this side of a banana republic - was being planned anyway. Probably was, but let’s be honest, when you are not wanted in your own boozer, time is up.
Brady’s bag carrier Tara Warren got the message a few months back, overlooked possibly in the pending reshuffle, she’s now got a cushy little number with the newly former Football Regulation Board.
Then the rumours started. Was Brady next? Plenty of leaked info there, as we dropped towards relegation. Would she, a Baroness and in the Lords, fancy the directors box at QPR, Millwall (maybe not now it seems), or Norwich? Heaven forbid any of those nasty northern outposts, Hull or Stoke even.
Nathan Thompson, the commercial director, quit this week around the time Brady went, and chief financial director Andy Moffet , will retire at the end of the season.
But now we know. According to reports She was busying herself trying to sort out the Vanessa Gold issue, daughter of the late David Gold and trying to knock out 27 per cent of the club for as much as she could muster for well over a year.
And here’s the interesting bit. It seems there were a few takers finally lining up. And with the Kretinsky holding, they could band together and kick Sullivan out.
Now Sullivan, the old porno king is nothing if not a survivor. A back street fighter. And he had first call on Gold’s shares, it is believed. So, backed into a corner, it's been claimed he’s had to buy some of Vanessa’s stake to head Kretinsky off at the pass. Buy enough himself to match the Czech boss of Royal Mail.
It was the only way to stay relevant, I’m told. A learned friend of mine reckons the new balance is something like 40.9% for Sullivan and Kretinsky, 8 % still for Tripp Smith, a few others on 1.1% and Vanessa Gold still with about 9%. Those figures may not be spot on, but you get the point.
So here we are, Sullivan and Kretinsky head to head. No match really when it comes to personal wealth, but you sense that this is the beginning of the end for Sullivan. Kretinsky will, it seems, handle admin appointments, you can see the club facing a root and branch streamlining to haul it into the modern world.
How long will Sullivan hold onto his prized control of the football side, transfers and all that bartering with agents that he loves, with the purse strings under closer scrutiny?
Now I don’t know enough about Kretinsky’s methods, the man who allegedly has to negotiate with Putin to get his pipelines running, who owns a bit of Sainsbury’s and some French media, as well as his beloved Sparta Prague. It’s fair to say that some foreign ownership works well—Liverpool, Aston Villa, Arsenal—while some are a not so impressive. Chelsea and Leicester City for example.
But for West Ham to get rid of Brady and leave Sullivan muted, in the same few hours is a celebration that can’t be missed. So far Kretinsky's predatory style has not hugely impressed me. Be careful what you wish for, a mate keeps telling me.
He may be right. But my reasons for wanting rid of Sullivan are not just that he has overseen a shambolic three years since we won a European trophy of horrendous appointments, waste on signings that leaves us £104m in debt and facing the second relegation of his 16 years in control, it’s the way he made his money.
Many will not agree, but that porno king image hangs over our club, like it did Birmingham. It’s nasty, exploitive and sleazy. And I hate it. I recall a conversation with a former Birmingham player whose wife was embarrassed to go shopping because people kept making jokes about her spending porn money. I’ll just leave it there.
Brady has been Sullivan’s associate for over 40 years, the perfect public image. A woman hailed by MSM for her career and success in a male-dominated football world. Her negotiations to win the London Stadium were good for the board, but not always the fans who reacted to her plans to rebrand the club, to damage the very soul of the club, it’s east London, dockland roots.
The promises of a world class stadium and a world class team have haunted her. A seemingly abrasive attitude to the fans, who never really took to her. Attempts to cut concessions for the old and young were hardly popular.
So we have lost our “full time CEO” and TV has gained a full-time apprentice while the Lords may well have to see more of her.
Did Kretinsky want her gone or did she just not want all the hassle any more? We’ll probably never know. But David Moyes will hardly recognise the place when he brings Everton to the London Stadium on Saturday.
Oh yes, there’s still football out there. Monday’s draw at Crystal Palace was a bitter disappointment, it’s being dressed up by some as a decent point, but we watched a side struggle to turn a level of superiority into goals. And we shut up shop early to protect the point. It was not what we expected.
Now only the second West Ham manager in history to win a European trophy brings 10th placed Everton to town chasing European qualification. I’ve said my piece lots of times about the way Moyes’ exit from our club was handled.
We were sixth and into the final stages of a European campaign when Sullivan offered a totally inadequate contract that excluded Moyes from transfer dealings. And then withdrew that contract when Moyes rejected it.
I doubt Moyes will be after revenge, or that he will want to do us a favour. He’ll want to win for Everton, only that, in their quest for Europe. Somewhere in a week of unprecedented boardroom upheaval, West Ham need three points. That’s really only what matters. I do hope Daniel Kretinsky understands that.
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