Gold Family Agrees to Sell West Ham Stake to Amanda Staveley Consortium

Vanessa Gold, daughter of former West Ham co-owner David Gold, has confirmed her family plans to sell its 25% stake in the club to a consortium led by Amanda Staveley and her husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi, in partnership with Ashland Forest Capital Partners. The announcement ends months of takeover speculation surrounding the Gold family's shareholding.

Staveley and Ghodoussi are familiar names in English football's ownership circles, having previously held shares in Newcastle United between 2021 and 2024 as part of the Saudi Arabia-backed Public Investment Fund takeover, before selling up two years ago. David Sullivan remains West Ham's largest shareholder, while Daniel Kretinsky's EP Group holds the next biggest stake in the club.

The timing complicates an already messy ownership picture. Kretinsky had reportedly reached a memorandum of understanding with the Gold family back in June, and his camp responded to the latest announcement by insisting it would examine "all of our options, including exercising our pre-emption rights in full" - a mechanism that could allow existing shareholders to match or top Staveley's offer before the deal can be completed.

The takeover jockeying comes at a turbulent moment for West Ham, who begin life in the Championship this season after relegation from the Premier League, opening with a Carabao Cup tie against Portsmouth on 8 August before their league opener at Burnley. Off-field scrutiny, including allegations against former co-chairman David Sullivan that he denies, has left the club's boardroom under intense pressure even as it plans an immediate promotion push.

With West Ham among the promotion favourites being priced for the new Championship campaign, any resolution to the ownership tug-of-war is likely to move the club's standing on Playdash's betting markets as fans weigh up how fresh investment could shape transfer business this season.