“We Want Our Club Back:” The rising tide of protest at West Ham United

Why West Ham United Fans Are Protesting Against the Stewardship of their Club

Photo by author

In recent months, West Ham United fans have witnessed the club’s most intense downfall. The club first moved up into the Premier League in the 1993–94 season, had a bumpy ride to finally reach a consistency in 2012, and have remained in this league since. In this time, the club saw a major victory in the 2023 Europa Conference League, but since this has not made much progress to success. This has lead fans to challenge the stewardship of chairman David Sullivan and vice-chair Karren Brady.

Sullivan and Brady have overseen the club since 2010, but had sold a stake to Daniel Kretinsky, a Czech businessman, in 2021. Despite their long-standing management, fans believe that it has been what they describe as a reign of mismanagement, broken promises, and a failure to push the club to success, leading them to currently stand in the relegation zone of the 2026 Premier League table. Fans have very mixed views on their management, crediting their administration to European success but disapproving of their governance in recent seasons where West Ham have seen major decline.

One major reason fans are disappointed in Sullivan and Brady’s control is their decision to leave Upton Park in 2016 to move to the London Stadium, which was originally built as an athletics venue for the 2012 Olympics. There has been much criticism over this change, as the stadium has a large distance between the stands where the fans are situated and the pitch where the match is taking place. There is also an extremely long walking distance between the stadium and the nearest train station, making transport to games much more difficult, particularly for disabled fans and for getting home after games when crowds form.

An 80 year-old fan, who has requested anonymity, explained that after being a fan their whole life, the move to the new stadium “killed it” for them. They have to walk “what feels like miles” to get to the stadium from the station, then receive a full body search before taking their seat in the stands which are a “very long way from the pitch” In their opinion, the stadium no longer “feels like home” and that the owners “should not get away with killing their club.”

With the stadium having a seasonally cost of £3m from the club, Sullivan and Brady made a promise in 2016 that the change of scenery would not rise prices of tickets for fans, and would bring lots of benefits to the club, including more accessibility seating for disabled fans, a retractable seating solution to cover the Athletics track, and better toilet and catering facilities throughout the stadium. One fan even says that they “basically offered us the earth.” But to this day, these promises have not been fulfilled to the extent they predicted. Many fans have called out these empty promises, with one commenting on social media saying that “they’ve sold us a dream and destroyed the club,” and overall complaints on the lack of atmosphere now that the “crowds are being dwarfed by the large stadium.”

Another fan, who has supported and been a season ticket holder of the club for over 40 years, has expressed that since the move from Upton Park, it has been “the most detached they have ever felt,” coming from “15 years of the boards mismanagement, failed promises, lies and unforgivably moving us from our spiritual home for their individual financial gain.”

He noted how fans from other Premier League teams always taunt our fans for “selling our soul to a soulless bar” and that the club “is perpetually skint” despite the promise that the move to a world class stadium would bring champion league qualifications.

Reportedly, taxpayers are also outraged by the ongoing weekly losses of approximately £1m per week from the stadium, after they paid £323m to convert the athletics arena to a football pitch, as West Ham keep all the money earned from ticket sales and share other income streams from the stadium. Multiple campaigns were set up to evidence the fans’ displeasure with these false expectations, including ‘No More BS,’ where tickets holders pass black balloons around the stands and hold up small red cards that have the slogan written across it at each game as a sign of protest against the ownership, and ‘Stop Exploiting Loyalty,’ which was a protest against the rise in ticket prices and the reduction of concessions that is ultimately driving fans away.

Photo by author

Protests are continuing to occur at matches following the issue of a vote of no confidence in the board from West Ham’s Fan Advisory Board in September 2025, which directly referenced Sullivan and Brady’s stewardship. The first staged protest took place on 20th September 2025 prior to their match against Crystal Palace. Thousands of fans gathered and marched outside the stadium, chanting ‘BS out’ and ‘sack the board’ while carrying large banners and posters. Not long after this, fans staged a boycott of their home game against Brentford to further protest against Sullivan and Brady, reducing the crowds in the stands by approximately 20,000 people, according to the Football Supporters’ Association. They then organised a sit-in protest at the London Stadium, where fans stayed in their seats 40 minutes after the match against Newcastle to show their dissatisfaction with the chairmen. But their most recent protest was during their match against Sunderland, where supporters walked into the stadium 15 minutes after kick-off while holding up red cards with ‘No More BS’ written on them, which is set to continue at every game for the rest of the season, along with the throwing of black balloons. But unfortunately, in a fans opinion, the protests have not affected the club enough as the “owners are still in charge and don’t seem to care as long as they keep feeding their egos.”

West Ham fans’ displeasure with the management from Sullivan and Brady continues to rise with the club’s performance in the Premier League, where they are currently standing in 18th place, putting them in the relegation zone. Fans are hoping that the removal of the current board will improve the players performance, and ultimately push them further up the league and out of the zone where they are at risk of moving down to the Championship.