{"id":465262,"date":"2026-05-24T20:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T20:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/465262\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T20:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T20:52:13","slug":"west-ham-are-heading-to-the-championship-what-happens-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/465262\/","title":{"rendered":"West Ham are heading to the Championship – what happens now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Ham<\/a> were always up against it going in Sunday’s final game against Leeds<\/a> in which they needed to win and hope Everton<\/a> won at Tottenham<\/a> if they were to stay up.<\/p>\n

Consequently there was an air of acceptance of their fate among the fans in the hours before kick-off, as they instead opted to enjoy the blistering heat rather than mull over a campaign of disappointment.<\/p>\n

But the frustrations came after West Ham<\/a> took the lead against Leeds<\/a> midway through the second half, as fans directed angry chants towards chairman Sullivan, who many blame for West Ham<\/a>‘s current plight.<\/p>\n

In terms of where West Ham<\/a> find themselves now, though, he can call on positive experiences when it comes to plotting an immediate top-flight return.<\/p>\n

He did it twice during his time at Birmingham, in 2007 and 2009, and again with West Ham<\/a> in 2012.<\/p>\n

On the first two occasions, at St Andrew’s, Sullivan was rewarded for sticking with the managers who presided over relegation – Steve Bruce and Alex McLeish. At West Ham<\/a>, he brought in Sam Allardyce, who guided the club back to the Premier League via the play-offs.<\/p>\n

This is a different West Ham<\/a>, though. Sullivan no longer has his long-time business partner David Gold, who died in January 2023. Gold’s daughter Vanessa owns 25.1% of the club, US businessman Tripp Smith has an 8% stake, while Royal Mail owner Daniel Kretinsky is in the process of matching Sullivan’s 38.8% by buying some of Gold’s. Sullivan’s long-time and trusted vice-chair Karren Brady quit in April. Karim Virani has taken over as chief executive.<\/p>\n

There are financial concerns. West Ham<\/a> recorded a loss of \u00a3104m in their latest accounts to 31 May 2025 and are heading for another hefty loss this year, according to sources.<\/p>\n

This is a problem, but not as big a problem now the English Football League has announced the implementation of Squad Cost Rules for the 2026-27 season. The finer details are still to be published, but essentially clubs will be allowed to spend 85% of their income \u2013 and West Ham<\/a>‘s income will far exceed any Championship rivals, and possibly any Championship club ever.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, football finance blogger Swiss Ramble estimated West Ham<\/a>‘s squad cost ratio for 2024-25 to be 90% and the club made it clear what relegation would mean in the latest accounts.<\/p>\n

“The Group’s principal business risk remains that of the men’s football club being relegated with the serious financial consequences which follow,” it read.<\/p>\n

“[In the event of relegation] more significant mitigating actions would be required such as further player disposals to generate transfer fee income and wage savings.”<\/p>\n

Club sources estimate overall revenue will fall by between 50% and 60%. Revenue in West Ham<\/a>‘s most recent accounts was \u00a3227.6m, down from \u00a3269.7m the year before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Ham were always up against it going in Sunday’s final game against Leeds in which they needed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-465262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}