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West Ham Burn Out?
MONDAY MARCH 5 2007 6:00 PM
Submitted by mat8drb. Edited By erin_broadley.
TAGS: Football, Soccer, Elijah Wood, West Ham
Despite having been the basis for the 2005 film Green Street Hooligans, events at West Ham United have moved into the stranger than fiction category this week.
The club's performance on the field has been amongst three of the worst in the Premiership, therefore currently under threat of relegation at the end of the season. This wasn't helped this week when they were charged with breaching league rules regarding the signing of two players from Corinthians, which could lead to points deduction.
It would appear to outsiders that when West Ham acquired the two Argentina internationals, Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, from the Brazilian club Corinthians via Joorabchian’s company Media Sports Investment, they might have flouted the rules of Fifa, since joining another club was possibly, for both players, legally a bridge too far.
The situation has now been seriously compounded by the accusation from the Premier League that the full details of the transfer were not disclosed, leaving the club facing a possible points deduction that would all but confirm relegation to the Championship.
Media Sports Investments were interested in the club and courted the board for around four months — with the players appearing to be "gifts" to influence negotiations. Despite this, the club was eventually sold to Eggert Magnusson in November for $170 million.
All of this confusion affected results on the pitch — the manager's head was turned, not least by two players who it didn't appear he wanted. Under the new regime, he didn't last long, and Alan Pardew was sacked within a month of the new owner arriving, being replaced by Alan Curbishley, who had managed another London team for 15 years until the summer. He was hailed as the club's new saviour.
Despite a first win against the league leaders, Manchester United, the performance of the club since has been a timely reminder that the value of your investment can go down as well as up, and the club have been looking into the abyss since then. Even spending $36 million on players in January hasn't helped.
And with all this going on, the players are starting to get out of control, with the manager accusing the players of not caring, stating that there was a "baby-Bentley" culture pervading the club. Finally, on Sunday, The Observer ran with a story pouring more fuel on the fire at the club.
Players are haemorrhaging vast amounts of money to each other at the card table, as much as £50,000 in one sitting. They have won and lost these staggering sums on the team coach to matches. 'How can they be in a good frame of mind for a match after that?' says one first-team player, speaking on condition of anonymity.
One senior player, an established international, is said to have won £38,000 from two of his team-mates in one afternoon recently. The losers had to pay up and manager Alan Curbishley is no longer speaking to the player who won the money. Two members of the squad have undertaken counselling and treatment for gambling addiction, and a third player is also believed to be seeking professional help.
[There are] spats between rival cliques within the dressing room over territory and wages; divisive tension between Curbishley and his players; doubts over the decision-making of new chairman Eggert Magnusson; and the widespread admission, privately, that the club will be relegated. He also said that one recent signing was amazed when he was asked to a meeting to discuss club affairs with senior management in a lap-dancing club, though the club strongly deny that any such meeting took place.
Yes. A lap-dancing club. Spending $120,000 a week on the new player's wages doesn't help the attitude of the existing players which combined with the manager and directors, it seems to show they can do nothing to stop the club being relegated.
This isn't really what sport should ever be about — egos over achievements. A sad reflection on the state of soccer...or, excuse me, football.
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