Posts Tagged ‘Russia’

Back in March we found out that we would be playing in this years MLS All-Stars game in Toronto, a game that many MLS fans were not too happy about and considered it to be a waste of time, to which i wrote about in this POST.

The tour is now over and the players are all back home, hopefully training. Did the tour work out for us? will North Americans run out and buy a new shirt each season? has West Ham shown the World what a great team it is? Well there is no doubt that West Ham will be remembered for a year at least, the MLS have never had so much media coverage in its 12 year life and already the MLS bigwigs are setting up next years opponents, Wow does that mean that West Ham are as well loved in North America as Chelsea and Man Utd are? its doubtful but we certainly have raised the profile of the club, not in the way we wanted but mainly due to the Crew Saga.

To me, the Tour was a success and West Ham are probably known by 10 times more North Americans than they was this time last year, the US TV ratings for the All-Stars game was higher than any MLS Game played, So well done West Ham United, Lets conquer Russia next season.

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An unexpected beneficiary of Alisher Usmanov’s decision to increase his stake in Arsenal to

21% is the billionaire Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, the West Ham owner whose bank Landsbanki acted as broker for Usmanov’s investment vehicle, Red & White Holdings.

This now makes Usmanov Arsenals biggest shareholder after buying a further 189 shares for £1.7 Million, which now takes him to 24% ownership, If the stake was to reach 30%, Red and White would have to launch a formal takeover approach.

Usmanov very rarely attends the Emirates to watch Arsenal and has attended only 1 game when Arsenal played chelsea.  He sees the top club as just a business venture,  His main goal is to eventually be the majority Shareholder which will give him full control of Arsenal, which i dare say will infuriate a lot of Fans and lead to demonstrations.
Gudmundsson, who owns  West Ham, became chairman of what was previously Iceland’s national bank in the 1990s, and its London subsidiary is understood to have brokered Usmanov’s purchase of an additional 6% of the club’s stock for more than £30m.