Financial turmoil could flush out unwanted owners

Earlier this year, Hank Hicks and Billy Bob Gillett ran into a little money trouble and faced the prospect of offloading Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel just to pay the heating bills. Today, the papers are awash with the news that the American investors have suffered at the hands of the current financial apocalypse and will owe two banks (Wachovia and the Royal Bank of Scotland) £350m in January. They do not currently have the cash, and refinancing loans from two of the worst hit banks in the crisis will be harder than getting Ledley King to stay sober in a nightclub.

While the prospect of a fire sale right in the middle of a serious title campaign is a possible (and potentially disastrous) way of raising much-needed equity, the current predicament does have a rather large silver lining: Hicks and Gillett may be desperate to bail out, forcing

It’s West Ham, according to new blog

The fact that a website exists where users simply submit pictures of stuff on top of their cats pays testament to the fact that anyone can set up a blog for absolutely any cause. In the spirit of sharing valuable information on the internets, one man, presumable a West Ham fan, has dedicated an entire blog to potential Premier League investors, claiming their money would be better used at Upton Park than any other football club in the country. Their mission statement is as follows:

An analysis of why West Ham United offers the best investment opportunity in English football; reviewing: talent production, Olympic Stadium prospects, proximity to London’s financial districts, large and passionate fanbase, high media profile, strong tradition & brand, consolidated private ownership, catchment size and growth potential.

Persuasive post highlights include ‘Bigger online than Chelsea‘ (based solely on the official sites), ‘West Ham can become bigger than Chelsea‘ (based solely on comments by Iranian businessman Kia Joorabchian) and ‘Fanbase bigger than Chelsea’s‘ (based solely on attendances from 1981 to 1994). If any Sheikhs have great big piles of money burning a hole in their palaces, they’d be foolish not to take heed of these compelling arguments.

Would you trust this man with your club?

While balancing the books may win Arsenal plaudits in the business world, supporters fail to see the honourable value of trading within one’s own means, and are becoming increasingly impatient with the lack of investment in the playing staff. Arsenal currently have three holes shaped like Mathieu Flamini, Alexander Hleb and Gilberto Silva and no one willing to splash out and fill them.

Unless, that is, Alisher Usmanov, with a twenty four per cent stake in the club, launches a formal takeover, as he is entitled to do, starting today. His advances have so far been greeted with boardroom skepticism - unsurprising, being that the Arsenal board appears to be made up of very grand old English ladies and gentlemen (plus American Stan Kroenke) with little apparent appetite for relinquishing power to anyone so vulgar as an Uzbek oligarch.