West Ham United co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold have discovered only one their squad has a relegation pay clause in his contract.

The Mirror says Sullivan and Gold were stunned to discover they would have to carry most of the current £28million payroll into the Championship because of what is in the small print in the deals - and what is not.

The new Hammers rulers hoped that the fate of going down would be softened by reduced salary clauses in the contracts of their first-team squad. However that is only the case with one, unnamed star.

And that means financial nightmares for the owners as the rest of the team will be on top Premier League cash in the level below if Gianfranco Zola cannot stop them being relegated, so two or three big-hitters will have to be moved out.

A Hammers source said: "There is a lot of anger among the new owners over this. They thought that some forward planning would have been done just in case West Ham went down."