West Ham is a club with a rich but prosaic history and the brutal nickname “hammers” (sometimes the Hammers nickname in Russia is translated as “hammers”), although fans themselves prefer to call their team The Irons, which in the Russian version will sound almost derogatory - "Pieces of iron." The West Ham Club Museum holds only four truly significant trophies: three FA Cups and a European Cup Cup. A team from East London never entered the British football elite, but it was always famous for the pupils of their own academy. The 1966 England team, which won the first and so far the only World Cup, had three of them - Jeff Hurst, Bobby Moore and Martin Peters. In the current English team, which has not yet won anything, but is still threatening to do so, five West Hamans are playing at once - Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Jamerman Defoe. "Hammers" only last season they returned to the Premier League, but this return was extremely effective.The club, led by Alan Pardew, showed non-British combination football.The reward was the 9th final place and the final in the FA Cup final, where West Ham in an epic battle lost to Liverpool. In the new season, the team she entered with cautious optimism, not unreasonably hoping to build on last year’s success, but the measured flow of life at Upton Park on the last day of summer came to an end: in east London, with a cloud of rumors, Tevez and Maskerano showed up.
NEW PLAYERS
The European transfer window closed on August 31, loudly slamming for the last time: the rising stars of world football - Argentines Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano - moved to West Ham from Corinthians. Their appearance for local fans was akin to the arrival of aliens: they, of course, heard that somewhere something like this had already happened, but that it happened to them themselves ?! Juve, MJ etc hunted for the star duet, while West Ham was not only never a super club, but even never tried.
The business world does not believe in miracles for a long time: it soon became clear that Kia Jurabchian, a colorful and ambiguous character, was behind the sensational deal. In relation to the world of football, his name surfaced 2 years ago when a native of Iran became the manager of MSI (Media Sports Investment), which, in turn, gained control of the Brazilian Corinthians. The same MSI that made unsuccessful attempts to buy West Ham in November 2005 (the parties did not agree on the price) and the Corinthians from which Tevez and Mascherano arrived at Upton Park.
Putting two and two together, the British press instantly suggested that the company Jurabchiana again set out to buy “hammers”. The assumptions turned out to be justified: Kia did not deny that he represents people willing to invest in a London club, but categorically rejected the participation of MSI. It also turned out that Jurabcian no longer has any relation to this company (the circumstances of his “resignation”, as well as the fate of Corinthians, are a topic for a separate story), however, he still has part of the rights to Tevez and Maskerano. The transition of the Argentines to West Ham was explained by Kia as the friendly relations he had developed with the club’s leadership during last year’s negotiations.
It’s no secret that the name of Jurabchian is closely connected with the names of two businessmen from the post-Soviet space - Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili. Accordingly, the assumption immediately appeared about the participation of the latter in the deal being prepared. And it, too, was generally confirmed: Patarkatsishvili at first languidly denied his involvement, and then he actually recognized it. Not without the participation of the famous super-agent Pini Zahavi. But recently, in England, little has been done without him recently.
On the same days (early September), the club issued an official statement saying that negotiations on a change of ownership are still in the initial stage, there can be no confidence in their success, and the transfers of Tevez and Maskerano have nothing to do with the process. Since 1992, the holder of a controlling stake in West Ham has been Terry Brown, who had previously managed a leisure park in Sussex. His business skills are unlikely to ever become an example for business schools - unless negative. In the same year, the club successfully flew out of the strongest class and thus missed the first season of the Premier League. West Ham soon returned - but only to fly out again, which provoked the indignation of fans towards Brown. He, in turn, blamed the accountant, and the club, meanwhile, was forced to sell almost all of its star pets. Last season, West Ham returned to the elite, and Terry Brown again showed his managerial talents (at the time of the sale, the club's debts exceeded £ 20 million) and, apparently, decided not to tempt fate anymore.
NEW OWNERS
It is difficult to say how and when negotiations between Jurabchian and Brown would end if a third party did not intervene. It became the Icelandic consortium led by Eggert Magnusson.
Magnusson is not only (and, perhaps, not so much) a well-known businessman, but also a notable sports functionary. More than 15 years ago, he headed the Icelandic Football Federation, and since 2002, he also took a place on the UEFA Executive Committee. Magnusson’s partner and main consortium investor was his compatriot - Borgolfur Gudmundsson, now the chairman of the board of directors of Landsbanki bank and a person, as they say in Russia, “with the past”. In 1991, Gudmundsson was at the epicenter of Iceland's largest financial scandal around the shipping company Hafskip, which involved the country's leading politicians. At the same time, Gudmundsson is one of the few in the history who was convicted: he was convicted of fraud and misappropriation of money to the company. After escaping probation, the businessman went to "make money" to ... Russia. In St. Petersburg, Gudmundsson and his son organized the Bravo brewing company, which after 5 years sold to Heineken for more than $ 400 million, and returned to Iceland. The homeland cordially accepted the “prodigal son”, and after some time Gudmundsson took his current position, while simultaneously expanding the range of his business interests, including football.
The unfolding struggle of two foreign investors for a London club not only inflated its price, but also added work to English speech therapists. If the names of the “leaders” of the warring financial groups, Eggert Magnusson and Kia Dzhurabchian, can still be pronounced without hesitation after some training, then at the pace to name their partners, Borgolfur Gudmundsson and Badri Patarkatsishvili, not a single one of the leading British television news managed.
Icelanders immediately seized the initiative in the negotiations. Their tactics turned out to be more thoughtful and more effective. Having declared the good-natured, long-bald old man Magnusson as a “frontman” (who has a solid authority in football Europe besides his bald head), the consortium managed to win over the audience and at the same time lead into the shadow the ambiguous figure of Gudmundssson. At the same time, Magnusson not only flirted with public opinion, practicing complimentary rhetoric based on the "great" traditions of West Ham, but also took a number of specific actions to confirm the seriousness of his intentions. In particular, the Icelander acquired real estate in London, said that if the transaction was successfully completed, he would certainly move to England, would personally actively manage all the club’s affairs and leave his post in the Icelandic Football Federation. Thus, Magnusson won the trust of both Brown himself and the picky British press - which Jurabchan, in spite of all his human charm, did not use.
The thoroughness of the Icelanders contrasted sharply with the behavior of Jurabchan, who sometimes openly delayed the process. As a result, at the end of November, the following became completely clear:
1. An 83% stake in West Ham is in the hands of a specially created investment company WM Holding (according to unofficial information, 95% owned by Gudmundsson). The price of the issue is 85 million pounds, plus 22.5 million of debt obligations undertaken by the new owners.
2. Eggert Magnusson becomes the chairman of the club’s board of directors, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson takes the post of president, Terry Brown stays and becomes vice president.
First, Magnusson expressed support for Alan Pardew, and also promised to soon bring West Ham to the London Olympic Stadium. But soon other problems came to the fore.
NEW COACH
While Terry Brown was deciding the fate of the club with potential investors, the team suffered a fiasco in the Premier League, bogged down in overlapping psychological problems. The “second season syndrome” traditional for West Ham caliber clubs was supplemented by internal uncertainty. In particular, Alan Pardew, the coach - the opening of last season, the man whom the fans of the “hammers” idolized and “tried on” to the post of coach of the national team could not help but be afraid for his post. Jurabcian, for example, held secret negotiations with Sven-Goran Ericsson (as in the case with all other Ericsson secrets, this could not be hidden). Many players were deeply thoughtful about their future at Upton Park. Tevez and Mascherano also played their involuntarily fatal role (I just want to combine them in one word, or better the abbreviation is TM ... or even so: ™). After all, the Argentines fell in the snow at the end of the summer not only on fans and journalists, but on Pardew himself, who by that time had manned and played. In addition, they arrived completely disheveled, and Pardew took several weeks to realize this. But even with the transfer of TM to the reserve and a return to last year's variant, the harmony in the team did not recover. Almost all the players played below their capabilities: Reo-Cocker was completely lost, stopped resembling the formidable striker Harwood, Ferdinand Jr. made a number of childhood mistakes, and Yossi Benayoun, almost the only pure-play playmaker in the entire Premier League, snicked and choked.
As a result, by the end of autumn, when the issue was resolved with the owner, West Ham found himself in the departure zone - where he still remains. Pardew, who in the recent past had acquired the appearance of an interest in the life of a pacified graying intellectual, was far from pacified. He began to get nervous, fuss, bicker with Wenger, make mistakes and, it seems, completely spoiled relations with leading players. The West Ham train turned off the right track, and after the rout at Bolton, it became clear that the driver needed to be changed.
Less than two days after the resignation of Alan Pardew, the new leadership found a replacement for him in the person of Alan Kerbishli. The former Charlton mentor, who contrived to make the middle class of the Premier League out of this modest and poor team, played for the Hammers when he was a football player - and West Ham fans accepted him without any problems. As a coach, Kerbishley gained a reputation as a thoughtful specialist, a strong theorist - rare in England, where most coaches are charismatic to the point of psychosis. Of course, Kerbishli has not yet had to work with large clubs (and big players), but there is not much reason to think that he will not succeed.
Kerbisley's main problem is the complete lack of time for buildup. In January, a winter transfer window opens, and before this joyful event, he should have time to figure out those players that he has now and determine who the “hammers” need to buy. Magnusson, even before acquiring the club, stated that he intends to allocate considerable funds to strengthen the squad, because the coach faces a difficult task.
Already, there is no shortage of rumors around West Ham. Many are primarily interested in the fate of TM. After the failure of the Jurabcian project, it is logical to assume that the Argentines will soon leave the club, but they will not be able to do this in the winter: these are the rules of FIFA, and whether Magnusson does not know them. The Icelander did not show enthusiasm that the club does not fully own the rights to these players, and said that this would not happen again in the future. In the meantime, you need to find an option in which both sides would get out of this non-trivial situation with the least losses. Apparently, Alan Kerbishley will still try to implant star newcomers into the team’s game.
Suddenly doubts arose about the future captain of West Ham Nigel Reo-Cocker. Back in the fall, he expressed doubts that he would be in demand in the new conditions, and the other day there was information about Everton’s interest in the midfielder. However, the agent of Reo-Cocker, Tony Finnigan, immediately said that his ward intends to stay. Fears for their own future were overpowered by Paul Konchesky, whose relationship with Curbishley had not yet developed in Charlton.
Hammers became the sixth following Fulham, Chelsea, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Portsmouth, a Premier League team run by foreigners. The new owners and the new coach are hiding the horizon of their claims in a fog of common words. So far, despite the rumors about the purchase of David Beckham, they have not indicated a special desire to follow the Chelsea route, but they will not become the second Fulham - a team without special resources and special tasks. If, by the beginning of the next season, West Ham will be transformed in the same way (or even stronger), as during the current one, no one will be surprised.