The article that follows was posted via the comments section. I am not the author but considered it so passionate, well written, and worthy of consideration that I have carried it as a main article. I will gladly accredit the author if he supplies his name.
Portsmouth have raised almost £100m in player sales in the last 20 months, could West Ham have done that (even owning and selling off their own stadium and training ground) and yet still Pompey has 70 million pounds in outstanding unpaid debts! Our situation is far worse; I don’t think too many understand the gravity of the West Ham predicament, Doomsday would be an understatement (Gold called it Armageddon if we are relegated, he did not mean that lightly) and we are still not out of it, not by any means, in fact we are still deeply in the mire; very, very deeply in it, up to our necks.
If Gollivan had not ‘saved’ us, our final demise would have been the same as Pompey’s & just as swift, make no mistake about that. The take-over has softened the devastating impact of the situation we ARE still in and we all have very short memories. I’ve seen some West Ham fans on the blogs even talking about a European place this, yes THIS season. We are not talking thousands here, we are talking millions, untold unobtainable millions; in this day of telephone number figures for money surrounding football clubs (particularly Premiership clubs) it is hard to envisage what those sums actually mean.
Some people find it hard to understand the concept of evolution and refuse to believe in Darwin’s theory of the origin of the present day species because they are not able to grasp in any way shape or form what happens to this planet and its flora & fauna over periods of millions of years, it is not possible for the human mind to comprehend such fantastic periods of time. The concept of understanding how great these sums of money really are is a simile to that inconceivable timespan.
West Ham were/are almost 111 million pounds in debt and were/are in hock up to their eyeballs (still very much the case) and sales of players in January were inevitable to raise cash just to keep the club afloat, yes just to keep trading as a business and not becoming the first premiership club to go into administration.
Gollivan only own 50% of the club and a bunch of creditors still own the other half. So extremely desperate are Gollivan to raise funds they were even prepared to grovel to Curbishley and ask him to invest his paltry 1.5 million; do you think they would have done that if the situation is still not as grave as it ever was? We were dead and on life support, they were about to turn off the machines that were keeping us alive when someone saw the Gollivan finger twitch just when the doctor had his finger on the off switch, that is how close we came and we are still in a coma that will take years to come out of, we were that close to dying at the ripe old age of 115.
Melodramatic? That’s as maybe but it is much closer to the truth than many West Ham fans are prepared to admit!
6 comments:
The issue I have with this is that we still have players who can be sold. In your own words, Pompey have reduced their debt by £100m and are STILL £70m in debt. How can our situation be worse? Pompey, on that basis, must have started with a debt of £170m, not £110m. Further, Pompey have a lower turnover than ourselves. Add to that the fact that Sullivan and Gold have invested £50m of THEIR OWN money rather than simply "promised funds" and a completely different picture emerges. Yes there were debts of £110m on takeover but presumably the money injected by the Davids is being used to reduce that? The club are effectively owned by their creditors and G&S have paid off £50m surely? Player sales COULD recoup the other £50m and reduce the debt to zero. The club would still own the ground and players worth another £50m on this model so would be a long way from financial meltdown.
One slight problem with this article, the whole write up is based on the belief of Gold's previous press release in which he stated we where one hundred and ten million pounds in debt.
I strongly question whether this can be considered factual. Is it not very characteristic of to tell the press what ever they please to suit their needs?
Don't get me wrong I believe we are in the shit house, but to the extent they say is very questionable at the least in my eyes. We have a pair of media whores at the helm, I wouldn't take what they have to say as gospel.
I would in actual fact bet on them coming out in a years time and claim to have cleared half (55 million pounds) of our debt.
Neil.
p.s. An eight year old understood the majority of this post, fantastic is it not?
Pointless bollox
Find a girlfriend and you will discover why God gave you them!
Absolute scare-mongering conjecture and nonsence. We are well over the hump and have been for months!
No proof in any of the claims too....
- West Ham have raised over £50m in player sales since the Summer of 2008 (the same time-frame). That's with Green, Upson, Behrami, Parker, Noble, Collison, Tomkins, Cole and Diamanti still at the club.
- If West Ham were that close to folding (on "life support"), then why weren't Summer/January offers for Cole, Behrami, Upson and Tomkins accepted?
- West Ham's annual turnover is over 50% greater than Portsmouth's.
West Ham were in a financial mess because of Curbishley and Magnusson. Severe overspending on wages/transfe fees was the cause. However, from this Summer we will obviously be will into the rebuilding process because so many players are out of contract and our wage bill will be cut dramatically. Dyer will go, Davenport will go, Boa Morte will go, Gabbidon will go, Upson will go, Ilan will go, Behrami will go etc etc.
Gold and Sullivan will take the credit, but Duxbury and Nani deserve the praise. To keep us with a Premier League standard squad, despite flogging £50m worth of talent and cutting the wage-bill by over 30% is remarkable. Those 2 are hated by many, but one day, probably the next time we win a trophy, every West Ham fan should look to Duxbury and Nani and say "Thank You!"
£50m recouped, wage-bill sliced by over 25% and only 3 places dropped since May 2008 in the league (from 10th to 13th now).
WORLD CLASS SCOTT AND GIANLUCA!!!!
LOL I'm running that as a main article too! Total cobblers but it made me laugh!
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