**West Ham’s new owner David Sullivan has revealed the club is £110m in debt as it battles for Premier League survival.**Former Birmingham owners Sullivan and David Gold now control the Hammers after buying a 50% shareholding.
“It makes no commercial sense to buy this club,” said Sullivan after laying out the scale of West Ham’s borrowing.
“If there was any other club in this situation, then we would not be buying it. We bought this as supporters, not from a business point of view.”
CB Holdings, who retain the other 50% shareholding, had said the club had debts of £38m, but Sullivan claimed the figure was nearer £110m.
“We can reassure fans who were terrified that they were going to lose two or three of the best players that that is now not going to happen”
David Gold
“We owe £50m to banks and £40m to other clubs… and there is no new money coming in to the club,” he said.
“I don’t know if West Ham have been close to administration but they walked a very close line. We’re taking over a club in a bad situation.”
Sullivan said that debts included the settlement for former boss Alan Curbishley and to Sheffield United, who are owed about £20m as a result of the Carlos Tevez saga.
CB Holdings, whose majority shareholder is the troubled Icelandic bank Straumur, had borrowed money by using future season ticket sales as capital, Sullivan, 59, stated.
“We’re going to have to do some wheeling and dealing which we’re very good at,” he added. “We’ll have to find some new money.”
Sullivan’s deal sees him taking strategic and operational control of the club, while he and Gold have a four-year option on the remaining shares.
Nevertheless, he is instead hopeful of attracting a consortium of wealthy investors to help get the Hammers back on track.
“Our preferred option is that we find other people who want five or 10% and we will go to [AirAsia and Lotus F1 tycoon] Tony Fernandes, who was one of the others interested in buying the club.”
Former West Ham youth team player Gold, 73, said that the pair had managed to avert the immediate danger of having to sell players to pay off debts.
He said West Ham needed to secure £8m in the current January window and another £20m by the summer.
"The first thing we needed to do was not to bring in new players, the first thing was to make sure no players left, " said Gold.
"Up until a month ago you constantly read and saw on TV that the current owners would have to sell their best players to stay in business.
“We can reassure fans who were terrified that they were going to lose two or three of the best players that that is now not going to happen.”