The tenth anniversary of the signing of the West Ham United London Stadium concessionaire agreement passed in March this year.

West Ham Vice Chairman Karren Brady signed the contract on 22nd March 2013, binding the owners to a windfall tax if they sold the club in the first decade from signing.

There had been reports for many years that Gold and Sullivan would immediately sell up on the anniversary to cash in on their investments, speculation denied by both many times at the time but many insisted they knew better and the pair were planning to sell up by April this year.

David Gold sadly passed in January and his daughter Jacqueline in March also before the anniversary but club sources say the Gold family will retain their shares saying the chance of the family selling of the shares any time soon is ‘pure speculation’ with zero substance.

18% of David Gold’s shares were held in his own name at the time of his death and are considered liable for inheritance tax if the Gold Family sold up this year.

David Sullivan continues to say privately he has no intention of selling his West Ham shares any time soon; he is 74 years old with a net worth of £1.1 billion. There are questions about what would motivate him to sell up in his life as an extra £250m in cash would mean very little to him personally, and he often shares he plans to hand down his shares to his sons on his death with Jack Sullivan being groomed to take over his father’s role one day.

There are also questions about whether Daniel Kretinsky wants to mount a complete takeover, he is a serial minority shareholder of many companies, including Sparta Prague for many years, it is claimed he treats all of the investments in one hundred companies, including West Ham, equally, managing them at arm’s length through his senior management team.  When you take away the vanity of owning of a Premier League club you have to question the motivation of Kretinsky mounting a full takeover.

In recent months he has been more interested in obtaining a £1.5 billion subsidy from the British government for his energy company as well as ambitions to increase his shareholding in Royal Mail, french supermarket chain Casino and French retailer Fnac Darty.

It appears West Ham ownership to retain the status quo for now!