West Ham United are teetering on the brink of the relegation zone at present, above the drop only via goal difference, as they battle for Premier League survival. Further cause for concern for the Hammers may be on the horizon too as their accounts have revealed that the club made £27.26m losses for the year to May 2019. This figure highlights how West Ham have relied upon the money from the Premier League to keep the club afloat, and the devastating effect relegation could have has now been highlighted.
Joint owner David Sullivan described ensuring Premier League survival as an “absolute necessity” and that relegation to the Championship would have “serious financial consequences”. The statement issued by the co-owner and chairman may not have filled their fans with confidence, especially heading into the final week of the transfer window; with West Ham having only acquiring second choice goalkeeper Darren Randolph at the time of writing.
Having said this, the current owners of the club cannot be criticised for not putting their hands in their pocket to secure signings having spent £214.4m on transfers in the last four years. This included breaking their record signing in both of the past two seasons on Sebastien Haller and Felipe Anderson for a combined fee of £63.9m.
With those arrivals and others such as Issa Diop, Lucasz Fabianski and Andriy Yarmolenko, the wage bill at the London Stadium has risen by 28 percent. An increase by almost a third falls in line with the club’s ambitions to be sitting further up the table, but that is not how performances on the pitch have materialised. The spike in wages may have been slightly offset by an 8.75 percent growth in turnover, but as the club have suggested with their statement, it is entirely unsustainable in the second tier of English football.
While the board may have decided to increase investment and bring in what they described as a world-class manager, it is yet to have the desired effect as they languish towards the foot of the table. David Moyes has been tasked with keeping the Hammers afloat as he did previously, but should things go as they did when the Scot took Sunderland down, West Ham would have catastrophic financial issues to contend with.
