JEREMY PEACE IN OUR TIME

22-09-2007

Shareholders of West Bromwich Albion are scratching their heads at the latest offer by chairman Jeremy Peace for their shares. He's willing to buy them for just £80 each - which values the club at a miserly £7.2 million.

The absurdity of that figure becomes apparent when you realise that next summer the Baggies will receive £8million for the sale of Curtis Davies to Aston Villa.

One disgruntled shareholder muttered to The Stirrer, "he's trying to buy the club on the cheap so that if we get into the Premiership he can flog it to a foreign investor and walk off into the sunset with a fortune."

Peace recently increased his shareholding in The Hawthorns to more than 50%, which allows him to call an EGM - this, in turn, could authorise him to "mop up" the club's small shareholdings (ie between one and ten shares) thus further strengthening his already vice-like grip on the club.

He could ultimately build up his stake to the point where existing shareholders would be forced to sell to him - at which point his numerous enemies fear he would sell up to the highest bidder.

If the Baggies chairman walked away with a fortune in his back pocket he wouldn't be the first to profit from doing a job that was traditionally a labour of love - but the suspicion that this is his secret ambition does nothing to improve his ever-worsening reputation among the fans.

Granted, he has developed the club's infrastructure beyond recognition, but his Doug Ellis-style stinginess during the last two transfer windows condemned Albion first to relegation, then to a failed promotion bid.

He also dithered about the sacking of Bryan Robson, and finally got around to it eight games into last season - just about the worst time for a new boss to try and assemble a team.

There again, if Peace was prepared to sell Albion for the £7.2 million he apparently thinks it's worth, he might just win himself a few new friends.