Introducing West Ham’s billionaire co-owner - much more than a transactions guy?
Alamy
A prolific energy industry investor, Daniel Křetínský has been diversifying into prominent western European companies, including Sainsburys, Royal Mail, Le Monde, and now West Ham.
Křetínský has been owner of Sparta Prague since 2004, but the biggest and most successful Czech club has lost its way.
“I have already come to terms with the fact that I will always be associated with failures in connection with Sparta.”
West Ham coy about finer details of the deal, but an increase on Křetínský’s 27 per cent stake is unlikely before March 2023 or else current main shareholders will face sizeable penalties.
“My personal goal is to help set up cooperation between Sparta Prague and West Ham United so that both clubs benefit from it.”
12 November 2021 - 2:15 PM
When the author James Montague wrote his award-winning book, the Billionaires Club, in 2017, he struck across a new reality: as a Premier League force you were nothing without a billionaire owner.
What had changed since the advent of the Premier League 25 years earlier, Montague wrote, was “the scale of resources needed to compete, along with the internationalisation of the investors.”
“Gone were the days that Manchester United could be controlled by a successful loc
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