‘They weren’t happy’: Journalist shares why West Ham actually rejected Arsenal’s Declan Rice bid

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Arsenal’s opening offer for Declan Rice was rejected on Thursday.

Indeed, as soon as the bid was reported, it emerged that West Ham had rejected the offer, and according to Charles Watts, speaking on his YouTube channel the Hammers rejected the bid because they weren’t happy with the structure of the bonuses and add-ons in this deal.

According to Watts, this deal was worth £80m plus £10m in add-ons, but West Ham didn’t believe that many of these add-ons were achievable, with things such as Arsenal winning the Premier League and winning the Champions League being potential bonus triggers.

West Ham weren’t happy with add-on structure

Watts shared the real reason why Arsenal’s bid for Rice was rejected.

“The first bid has gone in and it was immediately rejected out of hand by West Ham. It was believed to be around £80m plus add-ons which could have taken it to around £90m. The word from the West Ham side was that those add-ons weren’t deemed realistic, I think it was Arsenal winning the Premier League or the Champions League, they weren’t happy with it so they rejected it,” Watts said.

Fair enough

It has to be said that West Ham had every right to baulk at these add-ons.

Yes, Arsenal are a team on the up, and they will be hoping to win the Premier League and the Champions League in the coming years, but just look at the empirical data.

No league title since 2004, no Champions League win in their history. If Arsenal were indeed offering these terms as add-ons, there was a big chance that West Ham would never have been paid out.

Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t lie. Arsenal don’t win these trophies very often, and West Ham were absolutely right to be unhappy with the terms on offer in this deal.