Blind Hammer looks at the relevance of politics in Football and whether West Ham is honouring the supporter’s contract.
The news last week that West Ham is openly providing funds to the Tories caused a degree of shock and disappointment amongst many supporters, me included. There was a somewhat arrogant defence mounted by the club for this extraordinary action. The defence was that they are a private company. Consequently they feel that what they decided to do with their money was nobody’s business but their own. For me this caused even more disappointment and hurt. For the first time in my life I felt my club was pushing me away and interested only in my money as a supporter. I am happy to pay for Dimitri Payet but am less happy to pay for David Cameron.
Now it is well known that Karen Brady is a committed member of the Tory Party and accepts the Tory whip in the Lords (no jokes please this is serious). David Sullivan has also described himself on TalkSport as a “Moderate Conservative” when discussing the club’s policy of paying at least the Living Wage to all its employees. Given that David Gold is also the multi-millionaire owner of Ann Summers it is unlikely that admiration for Jeremy Corbyn dominates many of the discussions in the West Ham boardroom, even though Slaven Bilic is apparently himself a Socialist.
But then we have to ask what party politics are doing being discussed in the Boardroom at all? Presumably the decision to publicly allocate financial resources from West Ham to the Tories would have been discussed and agreed at Boardroom level. The fact that the sum involved, £12,500, is relatively small for a club of West Ham’s size is completely irrelevant. It is the principle of support behind the donation which is important, not the amount. Imagine the furore which would have broken out if West Ham had donated even £100 to the BNP or the National Front. [NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Are you seriously comparing the Tories to the BNP or National Front? Seriously?]
The big issue is that the Board have betrayed the Supporter’s contract and actually played into the hands of many, especially amongst the left, who are critical and dismissive of any footballing project. The traditional Marxist critics of the football industry are that they are microcosms of the exploitation which exists in society at large. Born out of the recreational projects of factory owners the clubs were set up to distract and occupy Workers, whilst retaining power at the boardroom level to exploit the financial returns from these enterprises. Players, themselves largely recruited from working class backgrounds, also contributed to this exploitation by creating the illusion of advancement for the working man within the capitalist system. This was an illusion precisely because the aim of football stardom was entertained by millions but only in reality achieved by a few dozen. All this contributed to the tiny numbers of directors of clubs retaining power and wealth at the expense ultimately of both the supporters and players.
Whilst there is a germ of historical truth in this Marxist analysis it does not help us much in explaining the modern game. Today the situation is much more complicated. It is players, not managers or directors, who take the greatest mass of resources from the clubs. Actually this player resources drain imperils the financial status of many clubs, as West Ham experienced during the Icelandic Saga.
This allocation of wages at unheard of levels means that it is not just wealthy directors but millionaire players who face criticism from many on the left. Such critiques argue that these players enjoy obscene levels of wealth compared to the paltry incomes of hard working supporters struggling to pay their Sky subscriptions. The price of Premiership tickets is also ammunition for those who argue that Football as a sport is becoming increasingly detached from the aspirations of the vast bulk of working people. Criticism also pours into our particular camp from those who argue that the Olympic Stadium deal represents an outrageous subsidy for millionaires paid out of the tax of many low paid workers.
This is not just a critique from the left. If you talk to many in Wales, as I have recently you, will hear fierce arguments as to the amount of national investment for London in general and West Ham and the Olympic Stadium in particular. I heard identical arguments when I visited Scotland recently.
So if West Ham are to enter the arena of nailing their mast to a particular party, and especially when that party is the Tories they are likely to be fair game to an awful lot of criticism.
I have my own view of football politics and am not naïve enough to think that politics with a small p can ever be excluded from Boardroom discussions. However this is far different from the blatant party political partisanship that West Ham has offered to the Tories.
My biggest hurt is that West Ham has betrayed the supporter’s contract. West Ham is not just a private company who can do what they like. I am fairly certain that companies like Apple, Google and Amazon also donate to the Tory Party and possibly Labour as well. However despite the Apple brand loyalty you could never imagine 60,000 supporters of Apple turning up every fortnight to cheer on their Research and Development Department and urge them to greater excellence in developing the next iPhone.
Football in general and West Ham in particular is not a Business. You don’t have to take my word for this. David Gold when interviewed in the Daily Telegraph in 2012 made this clear when he was asked why he had taken over West Ham. He explained;
“It was certainly not financially driven. It was an emotional decision driven by the fulfilment of a boyhood dream, because everything goes back to those
Early years in the East End.”
Gold summed it up perfectly. West Ham are not simply or solely a business, whatever they may arrogantly state in any press statement. They are in fact a club. The contract that holds us together in this club is that we are West Ham Till I Die, irrespective of background, wealth, privilege, race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion or no religion. What unites us as a club is a passion which transcends. What unites us is our passion for our club. I can share this passion happily with Tories, Labour supporters, Greens, Liberal Democrats Marxist or Anarchists. As long as they are not racist, sexist or homophobic I am happy to call my fellow supporters of any politics my brother and sister who share in our fortunes and our pain. This is the implied contract in the support we offer to our club.
When West Ham donates to the Tories I shout out “not in my name!” They have betrayed their contract with me. West Ham should never provide grounds for any supporter to be politically ashamed, whatever our political opinions.
I urge the club, don’t betray our trust, and keep Party Politics out of West ham.
COYI
David Griffith