West Ham United fans will be left furious after some important figures from their club and Premier League rivals Liverpool emerged this week.
As if West Ham fans weren’t upset enough with the goings-on at their struggling club, they will undoubtedly angered further by figures emerging from Liverpool.
Hammers supporters are deeply unhappy with the club’s lack of progress since their much-heralded move from Upton Park to the London Stadium.
A protest march against co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold and their vice-chairman Karren Brady was planned before the home game against Burnley this Saturday.
It came after groups of supporters joined forces, chiefly to campaign over a host of broken promises regarding the stadium move and transfer spending.
The stadium move from the club’s beloved Boleyn Ground home of 112 years, and the actual ground they now inhabit in Stratford, is central to their discontent.
Supporters were told the club needed to move to a bigger ground in order to compete with the Premier League elite in terms of income and expenditure.
But club accounts released this week carried a worrying line, stating: ‘It is worth noting that the club would have made a similar profit had it remained at the old stadium’.
And that has prompted fans to ask ‘Why did we move?’.
Those supporters may well want to look away now then after a strikingly contrasting revelation from Liverpool, who ditched plans to move to a new ground and elected instead to increase the capacity of their famous Anfield ground.
The new stand – which extended overall capacity by 8,500 to 54,074 – cost the Merseysiders £110million.
So West Ham’s increase in match day revenue from additional ticket sales in a stadium with 22,000 extra capacity than Upton Park is a not too dissimilar a figure to an extra 8.5k at Anfield.
Even with the rather meagre £8.7 million profit from the sale of Upton Park added in it really does add fuel to the flames of West Ham fans’ ire.
It also vindicates Liverpool’s decision to remain at Anfield given the new stand will be paid off in less than 10 years from the extra profit alone.
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