West Ham Till I Die
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Talking Point

The problem with the transfer window

Many West Ham supporters appear to be disappointed with the progress made so far in the transfer window. Eight players have left outbound and yet only one has joined inbound so far.

Joe Cole, George McCartney, Jack Collison and Matty Taylor have been released while loan signings Pablo Amero, Roger Johnson, Antonio Nocerino and Marco Borriello have also returned to their parent clubs. The eight players are believed to have released approximately £9m from the annual wage bill while Mauro Zarate has added just under £2m per year.

Many agents, players and chairman are away on holiday for the first few weeks of the transfer window with the added complication this year of the World Cup which many players and agents will attend too whether they are playing or not. I am being told that many clubs will do the bulk of their transfer business after the World Cup rather then before it. I understand the club is also keen not to do all their business too early in case a late opportunity presents itself in the transfer window. It is claimed this happened last transfer window after they had blown their budget and wages which caused us to miss a significant high profile target .

Next is the tricky conversation on transfer budget, which is widely reported to be £20m in the media, the actual budget remains confidential but I am hearing whispers it is considerably less than amount quoted in the media as the club attempts to be self financing by living within it’s means. I am not saying the chairman won’t put their hands in their pocket like they are done many times beyond but I understand they would like to budget without another cash injection. Over the past 4 years the joint chairman have injected £40.7m in share holders which they are not collecting interest on as yet. The chairman has a reputation for a bargain so expect a few more free transfers or loan deals as part of out transfer window.

The next hurdle is wages, although our Financial Fair Play wage cap will be £58m this year I understand the club will not necessarily go right up to it unless they have to.
The players annual wage bill was thought to have been around £55m last year. I understand the club are aiming to be financially sustainable and keep the wage structure for individual players at £50k per week. They want sensible spending after the lack of return they got back in breaking the wage structure for Andy Carroll and matched the maximum wage for Stewart Downing. I expect the club to have its own annual wage budget which will be below the FFP limit of £58m.

Some supporters may be disappointed with what I have said above but in my view the club is far better shape than four years when we had debts of £110m. We are almost bank debt free as the remaining bank debts are now funded by shareholders CB Holdings and David Sullivan who refinanced the bank debt last year to the tune of £40m on top of the £45.7m lent to the club by Gold and Sullivan as shareholder loans. Their plan is to be completely debt free by 2017 when we move to the Olympic Stadium.

Yes we need to bring another six or seven players in but we need to do it on a budget and live within our means.

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