Zabeel in for West Ham...

Seems like Zabeel Investments might be shopping around after all. The Grauniad reports this morning that they have made contact with West Ham's Icelandic owner who yesterday rejected their offer and committed himself to the Hammers' cause. You have to assume that would be his initial position bearing in mind the personal losses he has encoutered in recent weeks as his Icelandic businesses have fallen to the credit crunch.

So what are we to make of this? Was the Zabeel approach the first of a number of broad-based enquiries of likely suspects to test the market and up and the ante? Have Charlton's board got too excited by the contact and offer and perhaps said more than they should? I travelled back from Scotland at the weekend with a West Ham fan and he just couldn't get his head around why we would be a better investment that West Ham. They are a Premiership club with a bigger fan-base, bigger ground and richer history. They have sizeable assets in terms of the money that's been ploughed in recently and yet should be going for a song as their owner is likely to be desperate. What's more, they are the most obvious candidates to benefit from 2012  if a deal is to be done about occupying the redundant Olympic Stadium and all the talk of the Thames Corridor devlopment applies more to them than it does us.

Let's face it, the money available to Zabeel Investments is premier-league in scale and it's no surprise that they have been courting Liverpool and Newcastle in the past. Personally, I believe Charlton are a good investment risk alongside comparable clubs but we probably need up to £50m to be as sure as we could be of promotion and then further significant investment over a couple of seasons if we were to have any chance of competing with the top 6. Spurs have shown that money-alone can't guarantee success in the top-flight. One thing's for sure, Zabeel won't be allowed to hold stakes in more than one English club, so they are going to have to make a decision on who is their best prospect.

If we've been lead-on here it will be a bitter pill to swallow and bragging Addicks might have a slice of Humble Pie to eat. Let's just hope we get some qualification and a decision soon.