David Sullivan to strike full West Ham sale 'agreement' after Amanda Staveley deal agreed – Keith Wyness
Daniel Kretinsky and Amanda Staveley are both likely to push to become the controlling owner of West Ham United in the next few months.
That is according to former Everton chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who believes that both parties will want to get a deal done while the club is still in the Championship.
This comes amid the news that Staveley’s consortium has agreed a £150million deal to buy 25.1 per cent of the Irons, having outbid Kretinsky for the stake, which would have given him full control of the club.
Wyness expects current owner David Sullivan to reach an agreement to sell the club within the next few months, despite his recent suggestion that he will wait until they are back in the Premier League before cashing in.
Staveley’s deal is set to make her the third-biggest owner of the East London outfit, with Sullivan holding 38.8 per cent, and Kretinsky 27 per cent.
The shares that the former Newcastle director is about to take on currently belong to the family of Sullivan’s former co-chairman David Gold.
Amanda Staveley consortium agrees £150m deal for 25% stake in West Hamhttps://t.co/Cy9KPCCQjr
— Kieran Maguire (@KieranMaguire) August 2, 2026
David Sullivan set to get ‘lump sum’ if West Ham are promoted
Everton’s former chief Wyness – who served as CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – believes that Sullivan may strike a deal to sell the club with conditions attached for if they are promoted this season.
The Scottish businessman made it clear that the Irons’ valuation would be significantly higher if they were back in the Premier League, and he expects Sullivan to want to account for that.
Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, he suggested that Staveley’s deal to invest is likely to trigger a full sale to either her or Kretinsky before the end of the season.
“Of course they’ll want a deal done as soon as they can because they want to get the shares at a Championship valuation, but Sullivan’s no fool. He’s going to hang on,” Wyness said.
“Now there could be mechanisms that they agree on that there could be bonuses paid if there is promotion, and it’ll be reaching that middle ground.
“If West Ham don’t go up, then Kretinsky will argue that he’s taken the risk and he’s trying to bankroll the club and sort out the mess that they’ve been left with, and therefore that’s the valuation that you’re buying into.
“But Sullivan will think, ‘well, hang on, I’ve left the squad with a valuation there, and you’ve sold some of the players, you’ve got some of the money back that was wasted’.
“I think there’ll be an agreement in the next few months of some sort of bonus-related payments to get more shares to give Kretinsky a majority. But if they do get promoted, then there’ll be a big lump sum payment to Sullivan as well that will probably reflect something like 75 per cent of the valuation he thinks he would get.
“That’s how I would see that sort of deal going at the moment.”
Amanda Staveley could ‘buy the whole thing’
Former Manchester City financial advisor Stefan Borson told Football Insider earlier this week that there is a chance that Staveley and her consortium could extend their bid to “buy the whole thing” at West Ham.
However, he warned that a full deal for the club would be “quite expensive,” and would cost Staveley and her husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi far more than the £300m they paid to buy Newcastle.
Borson outlined that West Ham must still be viewed in line with their Premier League valuation, due to the parachute payments that they are currently receiving.
He also made it clear that Nuno Espirito Santo’s squad has retained enough quality so far to be promoted back to the top flight at a canter this term.
