They say a week is a long time in politics. In professional football, a year is an absolute age.
It’s now exactly a year since the West Ham United Fan Advisory Board (FAB) delivered its devastating assessment of the direction of travel of the club by issuing a Vote of No Confidence in its board of directors.Notice, the no confidence was expressed against the board of directors, not any individual upon it. The initial response to it was to deny, debate and refuse to accept that there was anything fundamentally wrong, yet, here we are , a year later and the club finds itself in the Championship. Perhaps the FAB were right, after all.
The club has seen some very significant personnel changes in the past year which might support, in one or two cases, the concerns expressed by the FAB. We have seen senior executives Nathan Thompson and Tara Warren depart and the big fish, Baroness Karren Brady, resigned back in April.
July saw the retirement of Chief Financial Officer Andy Mollett and June the resignation as Chairman of David Sullivan, who we are told has also left the board of directors.
Last week saw the announcement that Vanessa Gold had sold most, but not all, of her shares in the club. Whether she will be leaving the board remains to be seen, but I would find it difficult to believe her relationship with Daniel Kretinsky would see him welcome her presence around the boardroom table.
So, let’s pause for a second and consider those changes. The chairman, principle deal maker in terms of recruitment, gone. Vice chair, responsible for overseeing the day-to-day running of the club, gone. The Commercial Director, responsible for the development of revenue streams and sponsor relationships, gone.
The Chief Marketing, Communications and Digital Content Director, responsible for the club's branding and image to the world, gone. The Chief financialOofficer, responsible for keeping the books neat and tidy, gone. The Head Coach of the men’s senior team at the start of last season, gone. The body count in Call of Duty is lower.
These are enormous changes, yet to many supporters it feels as if the dial has barely moved. Part of that is becuase supporters will only judge the outputs of all of those peoples' activities by what they see on the pitch, and where we are in the league.
Some supporters though are distraught at the continued matchday attendance by the club's former chairman. It makes them question what has really changed, but it would be unfair to fail to acknowledge the scale of change in the executive team in such a short period of time.
This summer’s transfer window has been a bit of a baptism of fire for new executives Karim Viarani and Nils Koppen, Interim CEO and Director of player Recruitment, respectively. Their brief, difficult enough to start with - after all, who really wants to buy players who have been found wanting at the highest level for whatever reason? - was made harder when Vanessa Gold elected to try and sell her shares to Amanada Staveley rather than Daniel Kretinsky.
That action destabilised the club and funds that were dependent upon the Gold & Kretinsky deal being completed did not arrive, because it wasn’t. As far as supporters are aware, Gold's change of heart appeared to disrupt our transfer activity significantly. I guess we all have our own way of expressing support for the club.
As far as Virani and Koppen are concerned, nobody said it would be easy. To their credit, they moved a good number of players out and brought a number of replacements in. According to TransferMarkt, West Ham United raised a net £146m during the window and still ended up with 28 senior players from whom Nuno Espirto Santo can choose his team from.
He, of course, is at the sharp end of having to deliver results based upon the players available.
Last weekend, away at Watford, there were calls for Nuno’s departure. To these ears, a harsh judgment having just secured a valuable point on the road. The win, midweek, against a side many tip to be strong contenders for automatic promotion may quell dissenting voices for a while, but the chants were a sign of a supporter base that despite all of the changes itemised above, is still failing to see the benefit of those changes.
It’s a hard school.
We now have five games in 14 days coming up, four of them in the league. The battle to get out of the Championship is so intense Nuno probably needs to secure three wins and a draw to ensure the criticism is kept at bay. Real Madrid coaches get it easier.
The final fixture in that group is of course the trip to the New Den, so no pressure there then. In truth we don’t play them all that frequently in the modern era, just 16 times in my lifetime, but the trip across the river to see them is this season’s hottest ticket bar none. A good win over there and Nuno might find his name is chanted in a positive way.
It might also buy a beleaguered board of directors some time. Time to get their act together in terms of the message they are giving supporters. For all the changes that have been made, there are a couple of major issues still to be resolved.
Despite standing down as the club's chairman, and despite him no longer having a seat on the board, David Sullivan continues to attend matches at the London Stadium sitting in the director's box. Consequently many supporters struggle to accept or believe that he really doesn’t have any involvement in the running of the club.
Whether it’s true or not loses out to how it looks and what people choose to believe. Perception, born out of bitter experience will trump facts unless the facts are repeated and backed with evidence. Should the major shareholders choose to redraft the club's Articles of Association, we may get to see who has what authority now, compared with what they used to have.
Sullivan could of course point out that nobody is stood outside the stadium gates holding a pitchfork as a consequence of former chairman Terry Brown attending every match, home and away . Brown, however has rather less of a financial holding in the club, and nobody believes he has any say whatsoever.
He, for example would have had Bowen sold before the final whistle last season. He’s got previous in that regard, as they say in all the crime dramas.
As for who will be the new chairman, it remains to be seen. It need not necessarily be a shareholder, they could simply appoint someone to the role as a figurehead, with no executive authority. It might even help in terms of people distinguishing between those who are investors, the shareholders, and those who are running the club, the executives, on their behalf.
This may be the point at which we get absolute clarity between the two companies, the holding company (WH Holding) and the football club, with the former purely being seen as the source of funds for the latter.
Should Daniel Kretinsky become the club's chairman however, he needs to be present at as many games as his schedule allows. The best pubs have the landlord's name above the front door and they are present behind the ramp more often than not. Should Daniel Kretinsky appear at the London Stadium for the Wrexham game and occupy the chairman's seat, supporters may start to believe real change is on its way. He would, I am sure, receive a positive reception.
We have yet to see the final tally of exactly who owns what slice of the club. The only certainties at this stage are that Daniel Kretinsky will be the largest shareholder while Amanda Staveley doesn’t own any of it. There is of course nothing to stop her making an open offer to buy the club should she wish to do so, but in truth, what would she bring to the party that wasn’t already there? Perhaps she has already served her true purpose.
The other major issue that will not disappear is the stadium itself. The anchor on the club's ambition, the deadweight dragging us to the bottom. More than anything, what many supporters want to see is a significant change with regards the London Stadium. The move to it for some supporters was the mistake that defined the Sullivan and Brady era. For other supporter,s they may not see it in quite those terms but few leave it after a midweek game in February singing its praises.
All the same issues are regurgitated, season after season: stewarding, facilities, access, egress, poor view and the lack of control. Those issues are from the supporters viewpoint.
As for the club's, if you are tasked with growing revenue streams but find yourself unable to increase ticket revenue due to the value for money frontier being reached several hundred pounds a season before rival clubs, or have the inability to raise money from sponsors due to the stadium's tarnished reputation, it’s a problem.
To move the club forward, the shareholders need to invest. Invest in infrastructure, players, people and relationships. The remarks made by Lyn Garner, chair of London Stadium LLP to the GLA Economy, Culture and Skills committee in July about an improved dialogue with the club's interim CEO should not go unnoticed.
The club needs a plan beyond looking for a full back with a bit of pace or a striker that can move. It’s difficult though for the supporters to see what progress is being made, if any, in this regard when the club's shareholders are unable to put on a united front. The damage done by Vanessa Gold's change of heart after agreeing her deal with Daniel Kretinsky cannot be overstated.
For Vanessa Gold to invite the fox into the henhouse and retain a seat at the table makes it impossible to believe she is on the same page as the largest shareholder - and she may not be alone in that regard. I commented last week that an element of “her” shareholding was perhaps anything but hers. Share certificates may well have changed hands, but has a corresponding amount of money done likewise in every regard?
It all adds fuel to the flames of suspicion and doubt. Nothing is what it seems, nothing is simple. What chance does Nuno really have if those above him are playing games? What chance does Daniel Kretinsky have of delivering for the club's supporters if the boardroom has shareholders with different agendas?
It’s in this context that supporters need to understand the situation regarding Sullivan's continued presence. He cannot simply be muscled out, it won’t simply be just a matter of money. There was, you may recall, some criticism of Kretinsky with regards his comments following the departure of Baroness Brady, with some believing him to be overly generous in his farewell remarks.
However in truth, it’s smarter to be pleasant to someone as you wave them cheerio if you feel it helps you get them gone. He may need a similar approach with Sullivan: encouraging him to leave, for example, after the club successfully returns to the top flight with the gift of a carriage clock and a bottle of port.
That may yield better results than simply asking him to clear off. Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.
Since his arrival in November 2021, Kretinsky has looked like the grown up in the room and he has now reached a shareholding - we are told - of 46%, making him the club's largest shareholder, but without having overall control.
Consequently he still needs to work by consensus and in collaboration with others but now he is in charge and has the opportunity to shape events, rather than react to them. It’s not his gaff, they’re not totally his rules, the supporters understand that. He doesn’t need to promise us a miracle, but we do need to see his plan, his vision and how he intends to move the club forward.
He has, to all intents and purposes, secured the glittering prize of West Ham United Football Club. The biggest club in England never to win its domestic league. There’s a challenge.
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