It seems West Ham United’s board aren’t just upsetting their own fans after a subtle dig from Borussia Dortmund chief executive.
The charge sheet for West Ham co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold and their vice-chairman is long and well-publicised.
Their work at West Ham has not been all bad, far from it, indeed many argue they saved the club from “doing a Leeds” when they took over in 2010.
It is fair to say the majority of fans are not happy with the trio, though, as a recently planned protest march serves to highlight.
The board failed to fulfill a promise to spend big in the transfer market after moving to the former Olympic Stadium. It was a carrot dangled to supporters sceptical of leaving their beloved Boleyn Ground home of 112 years.
Supporters are also furious about broken promises over the stadium itself with the distance from the pitch one of several major bones of contention.
But their major beef with Brady are comments she made saying the club had ‘no culture’ before 2010 as well as referring to fans as ‘customers’.
Supporters were left seething after reports about Brady’s remarks emerged at a sports business summit just a few months after the stadium move, as reported by the likes of talkSPORT at the time.
The Apprentice star later explained that she had meant the club had no corporate culture when she and owners Gold and Sullivan took charge of the East End club.
Well it seems that attitude towards fans from the likes of Brady and other English clubs has not gone down well overseas either.
Borussia Dortmund’s chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke told BBC Sport English football fans are treated “more clients than members” of the clubs they support.
Watzke’s comments come after protests from fans in the Bundesliga over television companies testing the water with Monday night football matches.
“The Germans don’t want to have the circumstances like in English football,” Watzke told BBC Sport.
“In English football, the fans accept, mostly, that they are more clients than members or pieces of the club.
“We have 154,000 members. Everyone wants to be a part of the club, not a client of the club. That is a big difference. That is the special spirit in German football.
“We have 81,000 spectators every match – apart from Monday. But we have 28,000 standing places, where the cost of tickets is between 11 and 14 euros. That is the Borussia Dortmund way.
“At the moment there is more money in England but maybe, in 20 or 50 years, we will, perhaps, be able to say our way was the better way.
“It is important what your fans think.”
A man after West Ham fans’ – and indeed all English football fans’ hearts it seems.
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