Simon Larner

@WHUITK_ Would love to know how with only £250m budget

Daniel Kretinsky, West Ham’s multi-billionaire shareholder is said to have plans in buying the stadium and converting it to a more ‘modern’ and football-focused stadium. One of the key aspects said to be removing the track and installing the seats closer to the pitch. #WHUFC

@shanaka86 Is this parody or is your head on upside down?

An hour ago I made a call. The Fed just graded it. Here is the honest scorecard, the miss first. I said the dot plot would erase its last 2026 cut and turn hawkish. Wrong. The Fed kept the cut. The median still shows one cut this year, unchanged from March, straight through 4.2% inflation. I expected a hawkish committee. I got a dovish one. What I got right is the call that actually pays. I told you to fade the market's hike bet. The Fed just did exactly that. Traders priced a 60% chance of a hike this year. The Fed answered by leaving a cut on the board, not a hike. So I misread the chair and nailed the direction. I thought Warsh would walk in hawkish. Instead he walked in dovish, and the committee would not follow him. Three dissents split both ways. One wanted a deeper cut. Two wanted none. Seven see no cuts left this year. The single surviving cut passed by the narrowest possible peace treaty inside a divided room. Here is why the direction held even though I had the mechanism backwards. Strip out the oil war and core inflation is running at 0.2% a month. The hot headline is energy, and oil is already falling toward 79 on the Iran deal. You do not hike into a barrel that is dropping. The Fed saw the same thing and refused to tighten. The lesson I am keeping. I was too cute on the dots and right on the trade. The hike everyone fears is not coming from a Fed that just protected a cut. The risk now flips the other way, toward whether that lone cut survives the next hot print. Half wrong, half right, all on the record. The cut lived. The hike died. And the whole thing still hangs on oil.

@HammersUnited2 Irons

Exactly my point. They must have so many income streams. English clubs need to learn how to better utilise their stadiums and diversify so that building stadiums like that are the norm. Obviously understand that having one team per state means that local competition is non existent- but still.

@simonlarner1969 @henrywinter The Dallas Cowboys, the home team, plays 6 games a year here.

Incredible stadium. #ENGCRO

@Martinf683 Used to love the Oldham away games. Bet The Grapes ain’t the same now though. C’mon England.

The night before vanlove festival....set up for the football.... come on England

@BigDaveWHUFC @daveglumart He needs one just to get to the breakfast table!

@simonlarner1969 @daveglumart Because Simon Jordan puts Sullivan on a pedestal

Jordan has never liked West Ham fans

@archer_rs Legend.RIP.

Passed away yesterday at 100 years old. Answered the call from Britain to fight and travelled from Jamaica to join the RAF in WW2. Gilbert Clarke.

@PinceyKeeble1 I have tried to establish how feasible it is to dig down and extend the roof. I think they are the only possible ways to get seats close to the pitch and utilise the trampoline areas! It will likely cost a lot more than the mooted numbers and not an easy job.

London Stadium. 1.Buyout the Ground & Land £100 million – £150 million. 2. UK Athletics Contract Penalty £30 million – £50 million. 3. Permanent Football Conversion £250 million – £350 million Total Est. Investment £380 million – £550 million. ÷2 investors. =£190m-£225m each.

Octopus is spelling it out in black and white: current rules mean UK bill-payers subsidise cheap surplus wind power that can be exported to France, yet the same British families picking up the tab are told there’s “no money” for real bill cuts at home. Under Starmer’s EU electricity market merger plan, those flows don’t shrink – they grow – locking in a system where British taxpayers underwrite cheap energy for EU customers while their own bills are kept artificially high by design.

@PinceyKeeble1 Now this is real news. Thanks

2021 both PAI & DK wanted in. Difference PAI wanted full control. Wasn't gunna happen until after 23. In 23 allegations were made against Dwarf. Then Gold passed away. Why the sale never went through. DK had done LS appraisals & spoke with LLDC during this period & waited. ⚒️😎

@Richard64GSBOUT @Harri_Grekela It would but it’s not achievable for £250m as far as I can see

@simonlarner1969 @Harri_Grekela That's a key point Simon, the upper tier. Not many seem to realise that was only ever designed as a temporary structure. Wouldn't a transformation similar to Real Sociedad's be lovely.

Long read about Kretinsky, read it here or on tinyurl.com/2s43m9m9 The Czech Sphinx Takes Control: What Daniel Křetínský Really Means for West Ham Most West Ham fans probably couldn’t have pointed to Daniel Křetínský on a map when he first bought into the club in 2021. Four years later, he’s the largest shareholder, David Sullivan is gone from the board under a cloud, and the Czech billionaire is now the most important figure in the club’s future. So who is he, and what does he actually want? Křetínský was born in Brno in 1975, trained as a lawyer, and built his fortune through EPH — one of the largest energy groups in Central Europe. Forbes estimates his net worth at $10.1 billion. Beyond energy, he holds stakes in Sainsbury’s and completed a takeover of Royal Mail. The press nicknamed him the “Czech Sphinx” for his enigmatic, inscrutable approach to business — a man who rarely explains his moves and rarely needs to. He made his money in unglamorous sectors — power stations, petrochemicals, postal services. He’s historically preferred staying a minority shareholder and shunning the limelight. West Ham represents a shift. For the first time, he’s stepping into a high-profile, emotionally charged environment where results get scrutinised every three days and patience isn’t always a virtue fans celebrate. His football background goes back to 2004, when he began building a stake in his boyhood club Sparta Prague, eventually becoming president and majority shareholder — a role he’s described as more of a “mission” than a standard investment. That framing matters. He’s currently financing a new 35,000-capacity stadium for Sparta at an estimated cost of around £147 million, due for completion in the early 2030s. Owners who think in stadium timelines don’t tend to panic-buy strikers in January. His group, 1890 Holdings, recently agreed to buy a portion of the Gold family’s shares, taking his stake to approximately 43% and making him the club’s largest shareholder. His opening statement was deliberately grounded — stabilise the club, retain key players, and secure an immediate return to the Premier League under Nuno Espírito Santo. No grand vision, no promises about glory. Just the next step. His investment philosophy centres on long-term value creation, stable cash flow, and methodical execution — none of which maps neatly onto football’s emotional rhythms. But it does suggest he’ll prioritise getting the structure right over chasing short-term results. A functioning board, a coherent recruitment strategy, proper commercial operations. The basics West Ham have often got badly wrong. The stadium will be the real test. The London Stadium arrangement has cost the club financially and politically for years. Křetínský’s instinct at Sparta is to build, not rent. Whether that translates to renegotiating the current deal or something more ambitious, it’s the issue that will define his legacy here more than any transfer window. He’s a serious, methodical investor in a sport that often rewards noise over substance. West Ham have spent too long being run on instinct and ego. Křetínský doesn’t operate that way. If the Sparta Prague blueprint is anything to go by, the changes will be slow, structural, and probably frustrating at times. But they’ll be real. Křetínský’s approach has never relied on sentiment. He identifies undervalued or under-managed assets, commits capital to repair their foundations, and takes control when conditions allow. Casino offered a clear precedent: he entered during distress and led a major restructuring. At Sparta Prague he transformed a club into a regular UEFA Champions League participant through sustained investment in infrastructure, data, and professional structures. West Ham, recently relegated and carrying long-standing operational and stadium challenges, aligns closely with this pattern. The only real question has been the timing of his move to a controlling position, not whether it would occur. #WHUFC #WestHam #Kretinsky #FootballFinance #Football

@HPwhufc The talk of £250m spend seems far too low for what essentially will have to be a new stadium?

How is that possible to move both upper and lower tiers forward? Upper tiers can’t be moved, the whole place needs bulldozing and starting again

@LbrtyStreetNews He’s been on ‘uno’ for months!

😂 he has no cards

@StanCollymore Stan You have recently become a Hero to me Good luck

1200 men have played for England. I'm guessing 900 are dead. That leaves 300. Out of those 300 I've seen 1 England player as a regular at England games with a flag. Me. So it's not 1200 men, it's 1. Beckham, Rooney and Co ( rightly) get the Royal treatment. I just want a Cat 3, behind the goal with my mates and a flag.

@AlistairCarns This is damning and frightening

This week the most advanced AI model on the planet got switched off by a foreign government. British researchers were studying it. British companies were testing it. British hospitals were piloting it. Not any more. This isn't an AI story. It's the story of every industry we used to lead. Britain has some of the best AI talent in the world. DeepMind was built here. Our AI Safety Institute writes the rules other countries follow. We have the researchers, the universities, the standards. What we don't have is the power stations to run the data centres, the planning system to build them, or the industrial base to make the chips. So the work happens here and the value lands somewhere else. We invent. Others build. Others decide. Then we read about it on Saturday morning. Same story as the kit our soldiers don't have. Same story as the factories we used to. I spent nine months in government making this argument inside the room. I'll make it louder from outside.

@PinceyKeeble1 I still can’t see how £250m changes that stadium - the upper tier is never moving closer and unless we dig down we are still gonna have trampolines.

Original architect warned about these problems before West Ham took over tennancy. He was binned off? West Ham continued with the sale of the Boleyn at half the market price despite the fact they knew they could not deliver what they promised concerning the London Stadium.....?

@PatrickChristys The **** that fought to get the English out wants who in instead?

Not sure Gerry Adams is best placed to wade in on this one