An astonishing claim has emerged from a close confidant of West Ham owner David Sullivan — suggesting the Hammers could be set for a £95m January transfer window.
West Ham are staring into the abyss in more ways than one.
The Hammers are now cut adrift in the bottom three of the Premier League table a quarter of the way through the season.
Only back-to-back wins would give West Ham a chance of climbing out of the danger zone.
Given the Hammers have just one win to their name from 10 matches this season suggests that will be far easier said than done.
In fact West Ham must go from winning one match in nine to winning one in every three for the rest of the campaign in order to have a chance of staying up.
West Ham must go from relegation to European form to survive
Off the pitch, financial doom looms.
One of the reasons West Ham are in this position is because they did nowhere near enough business in the summer transfer window.
The Irons desperately needed to sign two young, powerful, pacy strikers, to add more creativity in midfield, more steel at the back and depth all over.
But the club claimed they had to sell in order to buy and with very few saleable assets, they spent most of the summer window twiddling their thumbs while rivals combined to break Premier League spending records.
Now West Ham are paying a heavy price.
The club’s next set of accounts will be published in December and they, the board claims, will show record West Ham losses in excess of £100m.
That will plunge the Irons deep into PSR breach territory with further losses piling up this season.
It is a key reason why West Ham are desperate to see PSR scrapped when clubs meet to decide whether to keep it as the top flight’s cost control mechanism.
The financial mess is also a major reason behind the latest uprising of fans pushing for the current board to leave West Ham.
Supporters are baffled how the club have gone from winning a first major trophy in half a century, three consecutive and lucrative seasons of European football and selling Declan Rice for a pure £105m profit to this.
Fans are desperate for ambitious new owners who can take the club forward.
£95m West Ham January claim made by Sullivan confidant
That seems unlikely anytime soon. And even if new owners did come along, it could take many months or even longer for any takeover or shift in ownership to materialise.
The January transfer window is seen as last chance saloon for West Ham’s hopes of staying in the Premier League.
Although with the way things are going the club could already be well adrift and in need of a miracle by then.
Well it seems a minor miracle could take place in the winter window.
Because an astonishing £95m West Ham January window claim has been made by a David Sullivan confidant.
Sean Whetstone is a close ally of majority owner Sullivan.
The Hammers chief, second biggest stakeholder Daniel Kretinsky and the rest of the board have been heavily criticised for failing to find a way to invest more heavily in the team during the summer.
Now it seems they could have done that had they really wanted to.
And the club’s dire situation, which puts their place on the Premier League gravy train in serious doubt, is prompting serious panic in the boardroom.
Because now the owners could find a way to invest heavily in Nuno Espirito Santo’s squad.
Whetstone has revealed that in the summer he was told by a senior club source, believed to be Sullivan: “We’ll inject funds if needed/allowed/it solves a problem.”
Hammers to inject funds but it could be too little too late
Well West Ham have a problem alright.
And Whetstone claims a major cash injection could now be on the cards to try and save West Ham from relegation this season.
He also revealed it would be the first cash injection from the owners since Kretinsky’s buy-in four years ago.
“The Hammers appear to be in deep relegation form at the moment, and Nuno seems powerless as it stands to resolve the deep-rooted issues with the current unbalanced squad,” Whetstone said on X.
“Backing the manager in January to rebuild the squad seems to be the only obvious lifeline to avoid the drop, but it won’t come cheap in the winter transfer window when prices are seriously inflated.
“With £100m of losses last season and a considerable loss forecast this season, the board will need to inject new capital to balance the books and comply with financial regulations. The shareholders last injected cash in the form of a rights issue in 2020 when they bought £30m of shares, which they already owned, to shore up finances during the pandemic.
“There was another rights issue and an injection of cash in 2021 when Daniel Kretinsky acquired 27% of the parent club. 20% of those shares came via another rights issue, with Kretinsky paying £125m of cash, with the other shareholders diluting their shareholding. The remaining 7% came from other existing shareholders for £43.75m. In the last four years, there has been no cash injection from the shareholders.”
Current PSR regulations allow owners to inject up to £90m over three years to cover losses up to £105m.
“Shareholders can inject unlimited funds into a Premier League club as it stands, provided the money is structured as “secure funding” and is used to cover the club’s losses, allowing them to exceed the £105 million PSR (Profitability and Sustainability Rules) loss limit over a three-year period,” Whetstone adds.
“The club must submit financial plans for the next two seasons to demonstrate how they will manage their finances and stay within the rules…
“Any proposed change (to PSR) is unlikely to come into force until next season, meaning the board could have one last chance to inject cash and overspend this season before the rules change.”
