Figures released by West Ham on Friday show that for the financial year ending May 2025, the London Stadium club lost £104.2m pre-tax, in addition to a £42.1m drop in revenue.

David Sullivan and the Irons suffered a turnover decrease to £227.6m off the back of a lower league finish, fewer live TV games, no European football and a much lower profit from player sales.

The accounts also revealed that Nuno Espirito Santo’s side will need to sell players this summer, even if they avoid relegation from the Premier League.

Now, George Simms of The Observer has torn into the east London outfit’s ownership, which recently took out a £124m loan to get them out of a bit of bother.

West Ham criticised for repeatedly making ‘terrible decisions’

West Ham waited until after Nuno’s press conference on Friday afternoon to announce their accounts, which included that they are forecasting a liquidity shortfall in summer 2026.

This, essentially, means West Ham initially won’t have enough money to pay the bills even if they stave off relegation to the Championship.

Either significant player sales, some or all of Jarrod Bowen, Mateus Fernandes, Crysencio Summerville and El Hadji Malick Diouf, or owner investment will be required.

Simms went on to say: “The latter seems implausible given no money has been put into the club since Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský acquired his 27% stake in 2021, and the ownership recently took out a £124m, five-year loan from Rights and Media Funding Limited.

“This is not unheard of for Premier League clubs – Everton borrowed from the same company while building Hill Dickinson Stadium – but doing so purely to pay operating expenses is as obvious an indicator of institutional incompetence as any other.

“It turns out that making repeatedly terrible decisions is expensive.”

West Ham spent more than £120m on transfers over the summer, and signing the likes of Pablo and Taty Castellanos contributed to a winter window spend of just under £50m.

West Ham’s sad decline keeps on getting worse

West Ham ended their 43-year wait for a major trophy when they beat Fiorentina in the final of the UEFA Conference League in June 2023.

Former boss David Moyes’ celebrations will live long in the memory as the often maligned Scot brought silverware back to West Ham.

However, as fan discontent grew over the less-than eye-catching style of play, Moyes departed in the summer of 2024.

While the time may have been right to move on from Moyes, who is now thriving at Everton again, West Ham haven’t got much right since their trophy triumph.

Currently, they are 18th in the Premier League, with the days of European football seeming a distant memory. In 2022/23, they finished 14th after repeated top-seven finishes.

Moyes led them to ninth in his last season in charge, before they fell to 14th last term.

Most recent managers Julen Lopetegui and Graham Potter didn’t last long, and some of West Ham’s signings have been expensive flops, such as £40m recruit Max Kilman and £27m signing Niclas Fullkrug.

Perhaps Moyes was keeping the West Ham ship afloat. Either way, these are bleak times to be a Hammers fan, and they may only keep getting worse.

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