It is 4pm on a sun-baked afternoon in Valencia. Former West Ham United chairman Eggert Magnusson fiddles with an empty bottle of Estrella Galicia in a hotel lobby, eager to discuss his ill-fated spell in east London.
Magnusson’s last interview with a UK publication was in 2014 — The Athletic is meeting him after two years of discussions. Now he is 76, wearing a purple Dsquared2 hat and blue shirt, accompanied by his wife Nanna. It is more than 15 years since he left West Ham. He starts by talking about his successor David Sullivan.
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“My feeling with Sullivan is he loves control,” says Magnusson, who has monitored the investment of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky into West Ham. Kretinsky bought 27 per cent of the club in November 2021 and the full takeover that was expected has not materialised.
“I don’t think it’s something he ever wants to lose. I don’t think he will ever retire. If he sells the club to Daniel Kretinsky, Sullivan will more or less have to retire and I honestly can’t see it happening. Kretinsky has had success in business and would have fresh and new ideas for West Ham. But I just can’t see Sullivan stepping down.”
Reflecting on West Ham’s recent European success, he moves on to manager David Moyes, who has just guided West Ham to their first trophy in 43 years with Europa Conference League success. “My criticism of David Moyes is that he is a bit cautious as a manager and he doesn’t take many chances. But I guess that way of management has worked well for him over the years. If you always set out to be attacking then quite often you will lose every week, so he’s found a way that works for him.
“I have a good feeling about Moyes moving forward. It would’ve been a tough season for him, so winning the Conference League is massive for Moyes and West Ham. I can see them doing a Roma and reaching the final of the Europa League next season. Teams in Europe need to start taking West Ham seriously. They mean business.”
Magnusson was part of the Icelandic consortium that bought the club in November 2006 in a deal worth £108million ($137.4m). He no longer talks to Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, the banker and billionaire businessman who put up most of the money and had a 95 per cent stake. Magnusson lasted just a year in his role as chairman in what was one of the most troubled periods in the club’s history, following the Icelandic financial crisis.
Gudmundsson had a 41 per cent stake in Iceland’s second-largest bank Landsbanki, which collapsed in the credit crunch. His investment company, Hansa, the parent company of West Ham, was hit as a result. Hansa owed money to a consortium of Icelandic banks, so that consortium, CB Holding, took over West Ham in June 2009 as creditors. David Gold and Sullivan then bought a controlling stake from CB Holding in January 2010.
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“They built up a business formula which didn’t work,” said Sullivan at that time, referring to Magnusson. “Mr Egghead thought the owner would subsidise the debts. But I said years ago what this man is doing will not work and he will bankrupt the club. He went potty and decimated the club. I think he owes the club an apology.”
Magnusson is reluctant to engage in more tit-for-tat with Sullivan, but it is noticeable that time has not been a great healer — he still refuses to say Karren Brady’s name. “Sullivan, the nice lady and David Gold were owners of Birmingham City at the time. I liked David Gold a lot, he was a true gentleman and he wanted to do things the right way. I was sad when I saw the news that he passed away. Sullivan and the nice lady weren’t my type of people. But I think they have helped the club progress in a way and they got the London Stadium for almost nothing.”
When discussing the landscape of the Premier League, Magnusson’s focus is on Chelsea owner Todd Boehly. The west London side have spent more than £600million on players since Boehly’s takeover last summer.
“What surprised me (during the Premier League meetings) was a few didn’t have much knowledge when it came to football,” says Magnusson. “For example, we see owners making mistakes on the job. Someone like Boehly at Chelsea has come from the top, whereas we came from the bottom and tried to rise up.
“The biggest mistake Boehly made was hiring a new coach in Graham Potter because he had far too little experience for that elite level. He’s probably a great guy but he couldn’t take that next step up. Managing Brighton, then making the step up to manage world-class players at Chelsea isn’t easy. So it’s clear they made a big mistake and it has cost them financially.”
Continuing on the subject of takeovers, he says: “I can’t ever see there being an Icelandic owner in the Premier League again. There are more and more rich guys coming from Arab countries. The fans get excited because all they see is money and their clubs signing more players; Manchester United could soon have Arab owners. Many people feel they buy these clubs just to get a positive image. It’s just their little toy in the shop.
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“For most American owners, their style is different. It’s just purely for them to make money from.”
In the 11 months when Magnusson was running West Ham, their wage bill rose from £11.1million to £41.3m. To compound matters, West Ham were in a relegation fight. A 4-0 loss to Bolton Wanderers left the club in 18th place and prompted Magnusson to sack Alan Pardew, who had led the club to the 2006 FA Cup final. His successor, Alan Curbishley, secured their top-flight survival on the last day of the season against Manchester United.
“Pardew got a little bit big-headed after the FA Cup final,” says Magnusson. “I sacked him and he was shocked but the dressing room wasn’t the same as the previous season. He thought he was better than he was and he hasn’t really done much since leaving West Ham. (Pardew subsequently finished fifth with Newcastle in 2012 and qualified for Europe, before taking Crystal Palace to an FA Cup final in 2016.)
“If I’d known how the finances were at the club and the main people behind it, maybe it would’ve been different. You can’t buy a Premier League club unless you are filthy rich. We weren’t filthy rich. We signed players like Craig Bellamy, Scott Parker, (Freddie) Ljungberg and (Kieron) Dyer, but I wish I had a sporting director to help. There’s no doubt in my mind the transfers would’ve been better if we had someone who was an expert in that area.
“A coach like Curbishley knew a lot of people and players, but maybe they are not the type to play for West Ham to make us reach a higher level. Then it reached a point where we more or less had players who were similar and on a lot of money. We know we gave players ridiculous money.
“Quite a number of players also asked for pay rises when we were struggling. Foolishly, we would give it to them. There were so many crazy agents demanding all sorts of money. I read an interview about Bellamy being bankrupt and it surprised me. He was a nice guy during my time at West Ham and he also asked for a pay rise. I didn’t give it to him, though.
“Me, Curbishley and my friend (Gudmundsson) would discuss signings. The most important player we bought was Lucas Neill. No one talks about him but he was incredible behind the scenes. He was a proper leader.”
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But the lack of financial control was heightened by the £5.5million fine imposed for a breach of Premier League rules in signing Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. When West Ham signed the duo from Brazilian club Corinthians in the summer of 2006, they broke the rules on third-party ownership of players.
Sheffield United announced their intention to sue West Ham for the cost of relegation from the top flight after Tevez’s goals kept the London club up. In September 2008, an independent arbitration hearing ruled in favour of Sheffield United in their compensation claim from West Ham. In 2009, West Ham and Sheffield United reached an out-of-court settlement, believed to be £20million, to end their dispute over the Tevez transfer.
“Tevez and Mascherano joined before my time and the whole situation was strange but we had to deal with the financial cost of that as well,” says Magnusson.
“I still think the Premier League made a big mistake by going after West Ham. They allowed it the first time and then you had Sheffield United who got involved, which made the whole thing even more stupid. There are 11 players on the field. They went down because they weren’t good enough, not because we had Tevez.”
Magnusson was initially reluctant to have this chat but, over the course of an hour, as well as talking about West Ham, he talks proudly about his family, why he prefers the quiet life in Valencia and why he was ready for retirement.
“I was always in the news so I just wanted to be a private person again,” he says. “At West Ham, it reached a point where I stopped taking the Underground. I didn’t want to be recognised. I had enough. Now I’m more or less retired. I’m a lot happier that I’m not involved in football, but it’s in my blood so I still miss it. But now I get to spend more time with my wife and my family.
“I was president of the Icelandic FA for over 20 years so I just felt I’d given enough to football. Me and my wife stayed in London before we moved to Valencia in 2016, we just kept a low profile. We wanted a different scenery and we love living in Valencia. It gives us peace and no one really knows us here. Just the way we like it.
“I remember once being at an airport and someone came up to me and asked, ‘Are you Mr Magnusson?’ It’s a nice feeling but that chapter at West Ham is a time of my life people will never forget.”
Although Gudmundsson and Magnusson no longer speak, the latter still remembers the day he was approached to become West Ham’s chairman.
“A very good friend of mine at the time became very rich and we had been in football together,” he says. “I was travelling to London from a FIFA trip and he randomly phoned me and asked if I would be interested in looking at buying West Ham. I thought: ‘Why not?’ Football is a crazy sport but I support the club so that made it an easy decision for me. I still remember players like Martin Peters, Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst.
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“So the day I became chairman was great but also a very strange feeling. We’d been working for three months, day and night, to get the deal done. Lawyers were involved and it was unbelievable how much work it took. There were some occasions I thought the deal wouldn’t happen. It was a stressful time.
“But I was chairman for over a year and it was a great experience despite what happened. As I reflect on my time at West Ham, I didn’t know the whole truth, the bigger picture. I just thought, ‘My friend has a lot of money’. We had spoken about a lot of things and aimed to help West Ham one day become a Champions League club. I really believed it was possible. Then we ended up being in a relegation battle.”
Magnusson refuses to put a figure on how much he lost while chairman at West Ham. “My friend became bankrupt because of the Icelandic crash and then we agreed for me to step down and part ways,” he says. “The bank seized everything in the end and it’s quite sad how it ended. Me and my friend no longer talk. I phoned him once and he said, ‘I’m busy now, I will phone you later’. This was 2014 and he still hasn’t phoned back.
“I’ve had sleepless nights thinking about (the money I lost). But I try not to think about it now. I don’t want to put a figure on it but I know it’s a lot of money. I didn’t lose any cars, or my house. It’s taken us years to get over it but you never recover fully from something like that. When I stepped down, we had an agreement I would be getting money but that stopped after two months so I couldn’t even receive the money I was owed.”
Magnusson tried to sue Gudmundsson in 2008. “It was nothing personal,” he says. “It was my last chance to get something. But I didn’t get a single penny. Nothing. Who knows, maybe down the line I will get something but that’s wishful thinking. The Icelandic crash was like starting over again. It was very difficult.
“But the older I’ve become, the more grateful I am that I have good health and a good family. I’ve reached a point in life where I forgive him. I wouldn’t feel any better if I disliked him for the rest of my life. I just have to move on and take it one day at a time.”
(Top photo: The Athletic)
