Magnusson Opus

West Ham Chairman Eggert Magnusson has certainly been chatty this week. It started with this interview in the Guardian in Tuesday's paper. Magnusson spoke about the damage that the Carlos Tévez affair did to the reputation of West Ham and how the Argentinian himself was damaged, through no fault of his own. Magnusson ripped Newcastle for agreeing a £6 million fee for midfielder Kieron Dyer and then boosting that fee by 33% at the 11th hour, scuttling the deal entirely. Magnusson revealed that he reads online fan forums, although he does not participate in them. He said that he has known his West Ham partner, banker Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, for nearly 50 years, and the two bring a passion and desire for bigger and better things at West Ham: a new stadium with 60,000 capacity and regular European football.

Magnusson had more to say about the stadium in Friday's Guardian, repeating that he has offered a significant investment in the Olympic stadium for 2012 if it can then be downsized to 60,000 seats for West Ham's use after the games. If not, Magnusson wants to build a stadium across from the West Ham underground station on a site formerly used by Parcelforce, which I believe is sort of a UPS equivalent. To the Independent, Magnusson described the undesirables in the club that he and manager Alan Curbishley wanted to send away from Upton Park. He praised Curbishley's abilities, but also noted that the manager has to prove that he is the one to lead West Ham up the table and, eventually, to Europe. Magnusson said that West Ham will donate £500,000 from the £2 million proceeds from the Tévez sale to establish "mini-pitches" for youth football in the team's home borough of Newham. The rest of the proceeds are going to the lawyers. He also said that he hopes that UEFA and FIFA will do something to ban third-party ownership in football.

West Ham's £5.5 million purchase of Luis Boa Morte from Fulham last January led off the story in the Times that featured Magnusson, who revealed that Fulham wanted an agreement that Boa Morte would not play against the team from Craven Cottage. He also took on the critics, such as Sunderland Chairman Niall Quinn, who allege that West Ham's willingness to spend has inflated wages:

“It is very easy to blame foreign owners for all that is wrong with English football,” Magnússon said. “But I think it is strange when people say we are spending a lot of money and then they complain there are the same four clubs in the top places all the time. How will that change unless a club has ambition? Everybody should be pleased that somebody is trying to stop it because this is not a healthy situation for the Premier League."

Both the Times and the Independent reported that former West Ham Chairman Terrence Brown is not welcome at Upton Park and that the club is still considering legal action against the former ownership.

Only about 35 hours to go and we can leave some of this off-pitch stuff aside and concentrate on the first match of the season.