West Ham United's Icelandic patron Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson says he understands English football and indeed feels "semi-English".

"I don't think we think much differently from English owners, so I mean we are very pro-English," Gudmundsson told the Observer. "We are close to England, only two-and-a-half hours away from you, so we sometimes consider ourselves as semi-English. We know the culture. We are not coming from Asia or far away.

"I'm wondering whether with foreign owners it's about where you come from. It might be more of an issue if they don't, for example, play so much soccer in America."

The Icelanders are aware that some in the game are wary of all the overseas takeovers.

"I think many of the clubs who are not foreign owned use it as an excuse when they don't succeed," Hammers chairman Eggert Magnusson said. "They blame it on the foreign owners. I have a lot of respect for Niall Quinn and for Sunderland, but I think he was getting a lot of stick from his supporters because they'd been signing players for a high price and he used the excuse to come after foreign owners."