mardi, novembre 21, 2006

Football/Iceland. West Ham Utd & the "Mafia"

A certain gentleman from Iceland, a Mr Bjoergolfur Gudmundsson of the Landsbanki, has just bought West Ham United, main team in East London, for nearly £100 million (140 m. Euro). Not exactly a bargain.

Combined with the Icelandic "Viking raids" on Britain's High Street, a few people are wondering where the money's coming from. Last year the Independent (Old Labour bourgeoisie) and the Guardian (Labour inner party) asked how little Iceland, pop. 300 000, about the same as Cardiff, can afford to spend so much on buying British. This was picked up by Stoed-2 TV on Iceland (seems Iceland has more than one telly!), who repeated these concerns but doesn't seem to have added anything (according to Iceland Review).

There's some good articles in English on the Danish Ekstra Bladet site. Written in choicest English.

So the question remains - where's the money coming from? If not from Russia (with love), where? - Already champions Chelsea, and Edinburgh's Hearts club, are Russian owned. Chelsea bought themselves the English championship by spending silly amounts of money.

It's your verdict. A vous de juger.

Odd fact: there's a certain amount of amusement that Mr Gudmundsson's associate is a Mr Magnusson, same name as Edinburgh-Icelandic TV presenter and saga expert, Magnus Magnusson.

West Ham Utd are nothing to do with West Hamlet Utd., top team in Elsin@r.

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