Fighting for the Hearts and soul of a football club.

Boom boom on the on the pun there. Updating the site seems to take place everyday but the next couple of days I really have to get on with my uni work so will leave off the long-winded pieces here.

Anyway as you would have already read/heard the Icelandic takeover of West Ham is one step closer as the period of due diligence is over and the monies are being counted after a look at the finances. £75 million to buy the club and the promise to take on the reported £22.5 million worth of debts (loan taken out to build the Rio Stand among other things). Now back on the 1st of September after the transfer window had closed and two players from Argentina players had unexpectedly turned up on the doorsteps of the Bolyen Ground, the news came that West Ham were in takeover talks for the second time with a Mr Kia Joorabchian.

Now my head was still trying to get around the new arrivals but then an announcement to the stock exchange? Things were getting very interesting. Palermo fans on their main website were conducting a poll which resulted in them thinking the upcoming games against us in the UEFA Cup were going to be very tough indeed, due to the signings. Optimism was very high. And then we could not buy a win. Playing well in patches was all right but in a lot of those games during that consecutive run of losses, the side never looked like it would get back into any game once it had gone 1-0 down. Fingers started to point. Was it Pardew? Was it the players? The two Argies? Was it the extended takeover talk and speculation?

No, yes, yes and yes.

Alan Pardew was not blamed due to the simple fact that by sticking with him, he had got the club to heights in the previous season that was not expected at all. The players were blamed due to a perceived lack of interest and the lack of quality in their play. The two Argentineans were labelled as a negative influence on a squad that was tight. The takeover was protracted and uncertainty grew about the short-term direction and long-term future of the club. Kia Joorabchian turned up to many of the home games and was making the news as much as results and play on the pitch were. And then news of a second potential take over came from Iceland. The posters of West Ham fan forum KUMB.com based in Iceland and the Scandinavian countries broke the news (and translated websites and newspaper reports) that a Mr Eggert Magnusson, the president of the Icelandic FA and a member of UEFA’s executive committee was the figurehead of the second approach. This is getting a bit long winded so to cut the story short, Kia was given first glance at the books and Eggert was given short shrift, apparently over a lack of funds. After a West Ham imposed deadline passed on Kia’s group making a formal bid, attention turned back to Eggert was given permission to commit due diligence.

And we are now in the situation were people are now coming out and promoting the guy and saying how much of a nice bloke he is and how impressed the fans should be with his words. Now consider the takeover a done deal and Magnusson is the new chairman, replacing Mr Brown (for everyone that went on the Brown out protests and handed out flyers and raised questions at the shareholder meetings in which fan groups were banned and threatened with court action this is a moment they have been waiting a very long time for) then where do you want West Ham to go? Obviously you want to win something once in a blue moon but how do you want West Ham to go about business?

One way I do not want things to go at all is the way of Heart of Midlothian.

Brief background provided by Wikipedia.

Yes it was a bit lazy by me but I have to get this done quicker then I am doing it in. In the time period since being taken over, Hearts have had 5 Different managers in 2 years. This, coupled with a massive influx of players being bought in from former Eastern Block countries and the interference of the chairman in which he selects the team from time to time (and cost one manager his job when he raised the question of who picks the team) and the fans have got to a stage where they can not take anymore. The catalyst has been the recent dropping at first from then squad and then to a place on the bench of popular player Paul Hartley. Paul’s crime? To question the chopping and changing of managers and the ethos of the club. Hence his dropping and an outcry from the Edinburgh club’s fans. After this past Sundays 1-0 home loss to Rangers, a director of the Hearts board has accused the clubs own fans of racism after they booed the squads Lithuanian players.). That’s stupid to accuse the fans of racism because tome they booed and jeered because those particular players to me anyway represent the ownership and the way in which the ownership has imposed its will on the club and not in a productive way. The club is fighting its own fans as well as being cut further adrift in the league and who is to blame? You guessed it, the owners

Now would this happen to West Ham? Would the team be full of Icelandic players who would play regardless of their quality? You never really know until it happens right in front of you but in my opinion, it wont happen like that and for two main reasons. To start off, Eggert is billed as a football man. Over on his page on UEFA’s site (link provided above) it discuses his past roles within football clubs and his involvement with different UEFA comities like the woman’s division. The Hearts owners are businessmen first and then football people. Tome it just seems that they dangled a knife over a map of Europe and let it fall where it may and the knife fell on one half of Edinburgh. Secondly, Eggert has already given his backing to Pardew and indicated that he wants no part in team selection. Vladimir Romanov has already given his backing to many managers.

After typing all that, who knows really what is going to happen. The only thing I know is if the takeover does go through, I am posting an open letter to the new owners on this blog.