The bloody window is finally open. Yes, that mythical, diabolical transfer window that always promises so much when it opens and rarely delivers before closing shut again.
The windows of my flat are also open regularly now as summer has finally arrived in Hamburg and rising temperatures mean that my 2nd floor flat just below the roof of the house tends to heat up like a Finnish sauna on a regular basis, so it’s open windows all around, considering I’m also using Windows 10 on my laptop while I’m typing this out.
The transfer window being open should get things into gear now for our beloved West Ham as well. As usual we may have to wait for some bigger moves to happen first, forcing other clubs or players to make their moves before we can step in and benefit from the fallout of those early transfers. Reading through the rumours (I’ll make this quick) there is a chance we may finally make our second signing of the summer this week. Biggest names rumoured are as follows and it comes as no surprise they are all strikers:
Kelechi Iheanacho: Like I said before, I like the player – and not just because he has the very appealing “Nacho” bit in his name. Over the weekend the deal seemed to have gone dead with Iheanacho reiterating his desire to stay at Man City and fight for his place in the squad there. On the other hand he has apparently agreed personal terms already with us and why would you talk personal terms with another club if you weren’t even considering the possibility of moving to said club ?
We all know Iheanacho wants more games (which will be hard to come by for him at City) and we all know he wants to stay in England for at least another two years to get his UK citizenship.
I have read that Man City definitely have the intention of selling the player.
I reckon it’s still all about the buyback clause, the fee itself and the exact terms of the buyback, i.e. at what point will Man City be able to buy him back first, when does the buyback opportunity expire and how much will they have to pay anyway if they wanted to buy him back ? At the end of the day though player power still rules, so presuming he does join West Ham, becomes a legend and fan favourite while turning out to be the lethal finisher we have been missing for years now, well, maybe Iheanacho then wouldn’t want to go back to Manchester anyway. Or he would want to go back regardless at which point there’s not much we could do anyway.
So I do hope we get this deal over the line eventually.
Henry Onyekuru: Another player I like a lot, young, hungry, willing to improve and making the next step. He apparently was close to signing for Arsenal, but that move hasn’t materialised yet and reading Onyekuru’s take on it you can understand why. He said he wouldn’t accept a role as a bit-part player.
Apparently money is secondary for him, he wants games.
Now of course West Ham won’t hand him a piece of paper either, guaranteeing him 75 minutes in every game but surely he could expect starting a lot more games at West Ham than Arsenal for instance.
Allegedly he will be having talks with West Ham tomorrow and things might move rather quickly from there. He comes from the Belgian League where he scored an impressive 20 goals in 36 games for Eupen who still only finished in 13th place, despite Onyekuru being joint-top scorer in the league.
Players from the Belgian League seem to adapt particularly well to the Premier League in general as shown by the examples of Thibaut Courtois, Simon Mignolet, Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen, Marouane Fellaini, Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne Christian Benteke and a certain Romelu Lukaku.
Onyekuru seems to be a natural finisher and my former neighbour’s cat who was a good buddy and companion to me is called Henry too, so please West Ham, sign him up! (The player, not the cat!)
Michy Batshuayi: Yet another Belgian and apparently still our top target at the striker position. It does look likely that he will leave Chelsea in the summer, especially if they sign Lukaku from Everton. But that move would open up the possibility of Batshuayi moving in the opposite direction as part of the Lukaku deal.
I have no idea if Batshuayi might prefer to stay in London (which would increase West Ham’s chances of signing him) or if he would be even happier to try and become the new Lukaku at Everton (which I reckon must be very appealing to any young player).
Batshuayi as well is a great finisher and probably the biggest prospect of the three mentioned strikers (and the one with the biggest market value at present), but he is also a bit pie in the sky too, so I’d be very surprised if he ended up at West Ham anytime soon, be that on loan or on a straight up permanent deal.
In other news you may have seen pictures of our new home shirt being leaked online (which I won’t post here due to potential copyright reasons), but looking at the pics which were apparently taken at an Umbro shop in Thailand it seems to be a pretty average shirt, claret of course with a blending of claret/blue on the sleeves and a V-shaped pattern of light and dark claret on the body. It is not my favourite shirt by all accounts, but definitely not a bad effort either. Not a classic really, but a bit of a modern take, in line with the club’s approach of growing our brand on a global level.
Judge for yourself when you see it! And let us know in the comments what you think once you’ve seen it.
To close this out there is a new initiative here in Germany trying to put a stop to the (over-) commercialisation in football these days. One of the most recent ugly examples (although the lady itself is quite a looker of course) of commercialisation gone wrong was when Germany’s most successful singer Helene Fischer recently sang at halftime of the German Cup Final between Dortmund and Frankfurt at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.
Here is the show as it came across on the telly:
Judging by the acoustics the sound editors must have done a really marvellous job, as the TV audience probably thought “What a great show!” but if you were in the stands it actually sounded more like this:
Nearly the entire stadium in unison had mercilessly booed the darling of the German charts, poor Helene! What had gone wrong ? Well, football fans surely like a singsong and some of them may even love the songs of the Queen of German disco schlager, Helene Fischer. But most certainly not in the context of football, especially the almost sacred Cup Final!
The organisers had thought: “Big event this, it doesn’t get better or more glamourous than Helene Fischer, so put her on the stage and let her sing and dance a bit. Should be cracking for everyone!”
In theory maybe, but not in real life folks!
The fans sent a clear message with the noise they made. They weren’t happy at all with the organisers foolishly mixing football and showbiz (again).
I applaud Helene Fischer for going through with her performance in a professional manner, but it can’t have been a nice experience for her.
She just isn’t used to being booed. Ever. But this was a wake up call for many, some of whom had been alerted well before that Helene Fischer BooFest though.
One reasonably new initiative is called FC Play Fair and it is not directed at Helene Fischer personally, nor was that performance the reason why the club was formed.
The club has been brought to life by several individuals, some businessmen, others scientists, professors, journos and even lawyers.
One of the guys especially knows what he’s talking about, Andre Buehler spent time in England, he even did his doctorate on English football and today is professor for marketing at university and director of an institute for sports marketing as well.
What all the people being involved in FC Play Fair share though is their love for genuine football, not the modern, commercialised version, but the sport as such.
They have taken the effort of conducting a survey among 17.000 fellow fans, asking them what they want from their matchday experience and what needs to improve in German football in general. Note that this is not the Deutsche Fußball Liga (German Football League) itself or the Bundesliga clubs asking these questions, but normal people, regular fans from the stands. Quite eloquent ones though, looking at their professions!
They have identified various issues that need to be looked at:
Games being switched regularly due to the demands of TV stations, regularly keeping schoolkids and employees from attending certain games in person.
The lack of serious competition in the Bundesliga making things boring for everyone. If the only question is who finishes second behind Bayern Munich or how early in the season Bayern may wrap up the title this time, football loses a lot of its natural appeal.
The lads of FC Play Fair want to level the playing field again. At least they’d like to try closing the gap somewhat between the big boys and your average run of the mill clubs who are supported regardless by fans just as passionate and loyal to the cause as the Bayern or Dortmund fans who are spoiled rotten by perennial success and numerous trophies.
Commercialisation needs to step back a bit, not gain ever more power in the game we all love. It’s about the way money gets divided among the clubs and filtered down to the lower league clubs too. It’s about putting the fan first again, acknowledging that the fan is the main reason why the clubs can rake in these ridiculous amounts of dosh in the first place. Fans buy tickets, fans watch games and adverts on the telly, fans buy football shirts and fans create the atmosphere in the stadiums which helps selling the TV rights for the games all over the world.
Football without fans is possible, but not really worth much anymore once fans become disillusioned and lose interest.
FC Play Fair is hopelessly idealistic by its very nature and it remains to be seen what they can actually achieve. Some of their ideas are surely worth mulling over first and acting over second. Like their demand that at least one person representing the fans should sit on the board of directors at every club in order to look after the concerns and interests of the regular supporters.
The idealists no longer wish to remain silent, they want to raise their voices and put the plight of the fans back on the agenda. With the aim to have most games reliably played at the same time again, not spread over four days and seven different kickoff times. To not have only one or two clubs hoovering up all the top players and prospects while cashing the vast majority of TV money, leaving only crumbs for the rest.
Otherwise there will come the day when fans turn their backs on the game in droves, never to return. Football may be killing itself if things continue the way they have been going for far too long now.
The goals of FC Play Fair are highly ambitious. Some may say they are deluded and their efforts as pointless as a one legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen lake.
Yes, it surely is an uphill battle. But someone needs to do it. The issues mentioned affect football fans not just in Germany, but Britain, Italy, Spain, France, well, basically most countries in Europe.
Most of us still love football. Just. For how much longer depends on the clubs and the people who run football. COYI!!