It’s not often that you wake up to see West Ham’s badge plastered all over the early morning TV news channels, and no way was it anything to do with a new manager. Far too prominent for that.
We learned very quickly that co-owner Daniel Kretinsky now owned Royal Mail, and to reduce the explanation to the simplest level, he was now Postman Pat’s new boss. Hope that doesn’t frighten the children too much.
It cost him £5.3billion, got past the obligatory government review on national security grounds and now we know who to blame when the already ridiculously-priced first class stamps get even more expensive.
As for West Ham, there must be a few of you out there who must wonder what his future plans involving our club are, considering it’s just over three years since he bought a 27% stake, costing £168.7m, of which something like £100m went to our directors.
And in the words of Please Mr Postman, an early '60s Motown classic, nicked by the Beatles for their 'With the Beatles' album, and I’ll stop there because three quarters of you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.
But in a not to serious look at those lyrics, maybe Mr. Kretinsky might get a shift on, or not as now seems too obvious. “I’ve been waiting here so long patiently for just a card or a letter”...”So many days have passed me by, I’ve been waiting such a long time.” Come on Danny Boy, give us a song, Sully will sell for £900m!
It’s not as though you aren’t involved. There was that Zoom call last week that saved Julen Lopetegui’s job, you are alleged to have interviewed the coach as well as technical director Tim Steidten - and how much longer are you going to stand for Sullivan’s sons picking transfer targets?
Not to state the bleedin’ obvious, but there were many thousands of us who saw Kretinsky’s arrival as the first steps towards the eventual end of the David Sullivan regime at West Ham that forced through the controversial move from Upton Park to rent a converted athletics stadium in Stratford, something that many have never forgotten or forgiven him and the GSB board for.
We were all prepared to gloss over those links with Putin over your pipeline through eastern Europe into the EU. But the change of ownership never happened. Of course, Danny Boy has issues with duel control of clubs with UEFA - being the owner of Sparta Prague - but if he really wanted to oust Sullivan, it should have happened by now.
Interestingly, Jim Ratcliffe has a similar 27.7% ownership at Manchester United while holding stakes in Nice and Lausanne Sports. Since Kretinsky bought his stake in West Ham, he has allegedly turned down the chance to buy some or all of Vanessa Gold’s 25.1% whileit is alleged he offered a transfer funds package to Sullivan last summer - with strings that probably involved more shares - which was rejected.
So here we are, with Sullivan still in control and our dreams of seeing the end of the former porn baron’s involvement very much on hold.
You also hear talk of splits in our board, with Kretinsky and Albert Tripp Smith (27% and 8% on one side and the 38.8% of Sullivan and Vanessa from lingerie, 25.1% on the other). It’s purely a business arrangement now for everyone.
So did Kretinsky just buy his stake in West Ham as part of a plan to integrate himself into British financial establishment? Buy 3.5 % of Sainsbury’s and a stake in Footlocker, £65m on Heath Hall, a north London mansion, just to continue the process with the eventual aim to present a sound, respectable, acceptable position to buy the main target of Royal Mail? Well, if that’s the case, it’s worked.
So what now for West Ham’s future? Is Kretinsky now sitting tight to see how Sullivan’s future evolves? At 75 he may well want a quieter life elsewhere, somewhere abroad maybe, with his latest flame.
With Kretinsky about to spend millions on a new Sparta Prague stadium, he still has money to throw at sporting interests. With him being six times richer than Sullivan, he can do whatever he likes. Just that a lot of us would like to see some action sooner rather than later. Come on Danny, make our day.
Royal Mail or otherwise, there’s still football taking place. The 1-1 draw at Bournemouth showed signs of improvement. For what it’s worth we’ve taken 15 points from the last 11 league games, losing four. So there are signs.
The team on Monday looked motivated, they put in a shift, and with Lucas Paqueta kissing the badge and running to hug the coach, the team spirit looked fine and they were playing for the coach. Jean-Clair Todibo wasn’t there, of course.
There were things that concerned us, conceding 29 shots is just asking for trouble against a good side. That’s 56 shots against in our last three games against Leicester, Wolves and Bournemouth, which just isn’t acceptable at this level.
But this isn’t the time for having a pop at the coach. Julen Lopetegui’s father sadly passed away this week, and he’s been back to Spain for obvious family reasons. Some things are more important than football, and I’d like to express my condolences, and I’m sure every West Ham fan's, for the coach’s sad loss.
* Like to share your thoughts on this article? Please visit the KUMB Forum to leave a comment.
* Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the highlighted author/s and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of KUMB.com.