Amanda Staveley breaks West Ham silence after Daniel Kretinsky wins takeover battle | OneFootball

There's been a tug of war going on behind the scenes at West Ham United this summer, and now it's over the public face of the losing side has spoken.

There's been a tug-of-war going on behind the scenes over control of West Ham United, and with the fate of the ownership of the club now seemingly decided, the loser in that fight has spoken out.

After a sticky start to their return to the Championship, things are starting to come together quite nicely for West Ham United.

Three wins in which they scored ten goals have propelled them up to second place in the table behind early pace-setters West Bromwich Albion, with average attendances touching 60,000 having demonstrated that the fans haven't lost faith in the club since their relegation from the Premier League at the end of 2025-26.

But the fight to get West Ham back into the Premier League wasn't the only one that started in the summer.

Behind the scenes at The London Stadium, a fight for control of the club has been going on between the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky and Amanda Staveley, who was a high-profile advisor to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund when they completed their takeover of Newcastle United in 2021. Kretinsky won that battle, using his pre-emption rights to secure a majority shareholding in West Ham, and now Staveley has spoken out on the matter.

Staveley speaks out on West Ham takeover defeat

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Reporting on his Patreon on Friday morning, journalist Alan Nixon has published a statement from Staveley about losing out in the battle to take control of West Ham United.

In the statement, she says that, "We are obviously disappointed not to have been successful in our bid to acquire the 25% shareholding in West Ham United."

She also confirms that the intention of the group that she was heading was ultimately to buy a controlling stake in the club: "For transparency, our original offer was for both David Sullivan's 38.8% stake and Vanessa Gold's 25.5% stake."

Staveley states that her aim was to "rejuvenate the club", and that her and her partners "retain the greatest respect for the West Ham community." But she signs off by indicating that their interest in the club hasn't completely diminished, adding that, "We will continue to follow this process closely" and that "our ambitions for the club remain."

Staveley's consortium could effectively only buy into West Ham if Daniel Kretinsky didn't want the shares that became available

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West Ham United faced a conflation of problems at the end of the 2025-26 season. Relegation is a big financial issue for any long-standing Premier League club, and this was compounded by the allegations made against David Sullivan in an episode of the BBC documentary series Panorama.

Sullivan left his positions of influence within the club, but retained his shareholding, and in addition to this, the shareholding owned by the family of David Gold, who died at the start of 2023 following a short illness, made another tranche of shares in the club available through his daughter.

Amanda Staveley's consortium were outsiders with regard to the sale, and there was one matter that they couldn't get past in terms of securing ownership. The Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky bought a 27% shareholding in West Ham in November 2021, and as an existing shareholder he always had first shout on buying up shares that may become available. Effectively, while this was something of a tug-of-war, it was always the case that Staveley's group could only get a foothold at the club if Kretinsky didn't want to buy them, and he very clearly did.

It's doubtful that English clubs have seen the last of her consortium. She'd previously been linked to a possible move for Premier League giants Tottenham Hotspur, though these rumours were quashed by the club themselves. But shareholdings in football clubs do become available at fairly frequent intervals, and it's likely that her name will be linked with other clubs in the future. It doesn't, however, seem likely that these clubs will include West Ham United.