West Ham was dealt another blow today. Already reeling from losing their manager and signing up someone inexperienced, and foreign, to take over the job, the Hammers today have to face the prospect of having a shirt sponsor that can no longer afford to pay for the privilege.
XL, a travel company, signed a sponsorship deal with West Ham way back in February 2007. Their 2008 check, for £2.5 million, apparently has not come through yet. Which is bad because the company has gone into administration, the rough UK to US equivalent of bankruptcy. Oops.
So, it's by no means a death blow. That amount is roughly the cost of Dean Ashton's salary. With recent player sales, it is easily absorbed. Plus, another shirt sponsor can be easily found, and probably at an equivalent rate. No worries then, right?
Not so fast. The gem of the article is that one of the guarantors of an XL bank loan of over 200 million euros is Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, West Ham's chairman. Man, if they default, his credit is going to be ruined. I wonder if Free Credit Report can work that into a commercial?
The biggest question, in the end, to an '80s metalhead like myself is how does this affect Steve Harris? Will he be able to cope with having to replace this season's shirt with a new one after the sponsor is changed? I sure hope so.
Friday, September 12, 2008
West Ham to collapse financially (maybe not)
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4 comments:
No shirt sponsor? DAT'S NAWT SACKAH!
forget shirts, kick the ball in the cornah, come on now, play sum sackah. !!
imagine once american fans have the generation upon generation of inbreeding like the english, then one day maybe we can reach the annoying level of their average fans
LOL.
Well played, Mike. There's some real nice places here in Chicago that have show footy, and there's an English guy, ManU fan, at one that's a regular. He sits in a booth and bellows "C'Mon Teevez!" and "GET THERE ROONEEE!" for the entire fucking match. It's to the point now where I have to laugh at him.
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