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Czech billionaire contemplates West Ham stake

Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky is considering the purchase of a minority stake in West Ham United, The Athletic understands.

The 46-year-old, who is known as the “Czech Sphinx” because of his inscrutable investment style, is expected to buy 27 per cent of the Premier League club initially but may eventually take a majority stake at a later date.

This deal, which has been months in the making, would therefore spell the beginning of the end of West Ham’s so-called “GSB” era, a reference to their majority owners and co-chairmen David Gold and David Sullivan and vice-chair Karren Brady, who have controlled the club since 2010.

The staged nature of the proposed deal is understood to be linked to a clause in the club’s agreement with their ultimate landlords at the London Stadium, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), which says Gold and Sullivan must pay a percentage of any profit they make on a sale of the club to London’s taxpayers.

This would be worked out on a sliding scale, with no windfall tax liable if the club went for less than £125 million but 20 per cent on anything over £300 million. The clause expires in March 2023.

Kretinsky’s planned investment is understood to value the club in the region of £600 million, significantly more than two bids Gold and Sullivan received from PAI Capital, a group headed by London-based Azeri businessman Nasib Piriyev, this summer. Their plan was to buy the entire club and then renegotiate its long-term lease at the London Stadium to gain full control of the multi-purpose venue, which was built for the 2012 Olympics.

But Sullivan, who owns 51.5 per cent of West Ham’s shares, rejected PAI’s bids, saying they greatly undervalued the club. He did not, though, deny West Ham have been on the market for at least a year, with an asking price of £650 million, more than double what the Saudi-led consortium recently paid for Newcastle United.

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