Freshly relegated from the Premier League, West Ham United are entering the most crucial summer in their recent history. They will do so with a potentially damaging power vacuum at the top of the club: they have no permanent chief executive, no director of football; in April, Baroness Brady departed as vice-chairwoman; and on Saturday David Sullivan, the co-chairman, resigned too.
Sullivan, 77 — who jointly bought a 50 per cent share in
West Ham with the late David Gold in 2010 for £50million — is still the biggest
shareholder at the club, with 38.8 per cent. He resigned claiming that
“serious historic allegations” about him, allegations he “categorically
denies”, were about to be made public.
He has said that he may sue the BBC, who propose to broadcast the
allegations, for defamation.
The Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky has a 27 per cent
stake in the club and could increase his influence and shareholding in the
coming months, but for more than 15 years, Sullivan has effectively overseen
most of the significant decisions, including transfers and the hiring and
firing of head coaches.
Supporters may celebrate the departure of Brady and
Sullivan within two months of each other, but to prevent a further slide, big
decisions must be made. At this point it is not clear who will be making them.
There will be a board meeting this week to discuss the situation.
When Brady, whose role included negotiating the contracts
for players and coaches, left she was followed by Nathan Thompson, an executive
director, and Andy Mollett, the financial director, who will retire this
summer. They have yet to be replaced.
Having previously led the club’s digital, marketing and
commercial operations for five years, Karim Virani has been running the club as
interim chief executive. Sullivan’s sons, Jack, 26, and David Jr, 28, remain
listed as directors of the football club. Jack has been increasingly involved
in dealings with agents, although their future roles are unclear.
In the short term, West Ham may need to sell players to
comply with the Premier League’s financial regulations, the deadline for which
is the end of the month.
Clubs are limited to losses of £105million over a rolling
three-year period. The club announced a £104.2million loss for last season and
£57.2million profit in 2023-24, meaning that they can lose up to £58million
this season without sanctions. After that, they need to remodel the squad for
their first season in the second tier since 2011–12, when they were promoted
via the play-offs.
The scale and speed required for these decisions make it
imperative that the club quickly appoint a new director of football to work
with Nuno Espírito Santo. The head coach has been part of the interview process
for the role in recent weeks and they are down to a few candidates. The role
has been vacant since the exit of Kyle Macaulay — hired by Graham Potter when
he was named head coach in January 2025 — in October.
West Ham have tended not to rely heavily on analytics when
scouting players, unlike other clubs. The person appointed will need to bolster
the scouting and analysis team because Maximilian Hahn, the head of technical
recruitment and analysis, also departed last month.
Then there is the question of ownership. Sullivan was due to
raise his stake in the club from 39 per cent and become, with Kretinsky, one of
two main shareholders, each with the same holding of about 41 per cent.
Kretinsky had agreed to purchase shares owned by Gold to increase his stake
from 27 per cent.
Gold’s estate had agreed two prices, depending on what
division West Ham were in. By joining together, Sullivan and Kretinsky staved
off the threat of Gold’s 25 per cent stake being sold to either of the two
American parties who have had talks with the club over the past year.
The pair had been working on the finer details of their
deal, but Kretinsky might now push for an even greater say — or perhaps control
of the club. The 50-year-old, who bought Royal Mail for £3.6billion in December
2024, is also president and co-owner of Sparta Prague.
Sometimes the darkest time is just before the dawn of a new
era.
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