West Ham’s Karren Brady says £50m ‘elephant in the room’ must be addressed. A divisive figure among supporters, West Ham chief Karren Brady is a regular commentator in football finance matters. And she has now turned her pen to the biggest issue of the day.
Any goodwill towards the ownership regime at the London Stadium garnered as a result of their relative success on the pitch in recent years has dissipated over the summer.
Price hikes and the phasing out of concessions tickets – discounted rates for juniors and seniors – have sparked a monumental backlash against David Sullivan and Karren Brady. Some fans feel promises made upon the move away from Upton Park have not been honoured, with what they perceive to be the club’s increasing commercial focus coming at the expense of their interests.
West Ham’s stance on the imminent independent football regulator, a concept which is opposed by Brady and the club at large, has only further exacerbated the tensions between supporters and the board.
And with no sign of Czech investor Daniel Kretinsky upping his stake in West Ham, it looks as though the unhappy marriage in E20 will continue for the foreseeable.
And on that note, Brady has now outlined West Ham‘s position on Man City‘s recent legal ‘victory’ over the Premier League and its implications for English football.
Brady’s stance on Premier League’s spiralling legal fees. It was only recently that Brady warned of “chaos and anarchy” after a landmark ruling at the European Court of Justice that legal experts say could rewire the whole FIFA transfer system.
In her most recent column for The Sun, the Hammers’ vice-chair has switched her focus to the seismic outcome of Man City’s challenge to the Premier League’s so-called APT rules.
The APT (associated party transaction) rules were introduced in the aftermath of PIF’s takeover of Newcastle United in the hopes of preventing clubs from striking artificially inflated commercial deals.
West Ham were one of a handful of clubs who gave evidence against Man City at the tribunal, despite historically having enjoyed a good relationship with the four-time reigning Premier Le ague champions.
Both the Premier League and City are claiming victory in the APT case, with the PR machines of two institutions with deep pockets currently in overdrive.
In reality, these cases are rarely binary win-lose affairs, and the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. At present, the consensus is that City are the happier of the two.
Either way, the case – as well as the 115 charges battle currently being fought in the arbitration courts – will need to be accounted for financially, with every top flight club bearing the costs to an extent.
In her column, Brady said: “All 20 clubs, plus their executives, sit in a room and ignore the massive elephant that also lurks in every meeting — the ongoing litigation and the £50million-plus of legal costs racked up fighting and defending claims.
“But at the League meeting next week that elephant is going to get an introduction, as we have just tripped over his trunk.
“So next week clubs have to agree to make the necessary changes to the APT rules to address the Tribunal’s concerns.
“This requires 14 votes — at least 14 clubs have to agree — or the whole system is thrown into chaos.
“It needs to be so that the system can continue to be effective.
“We must stop clubs spending whatever they like to get an unbeatable team and create an uncompetitive league.“
The APT case: Have West Ham been affected?
Contrary to some reports, one outcome of the case which centred on soft-loans (interest-free loans from shareholders) will not negatively impact West Ham.
Unlike several other Premier League clubs, West Ham’s owners have previously charged interest on loans they have given to the club, so they would not be affected by any retrospective PSR action taken against clubs who have benefited from soft loans, which the APT ruling has essentially labelled a subsidy.
But the broader outcome of the APT case is bound to have far-reaching consequences that will hit West Ham as oneof the Premier League’s 20 shareholders.
