The owners of West Ham have rejected a Twitter offer from Tony Fernandes to take over at Upton Park.

The head of Team Lotus Formula One lost his bid to buy the club - recently relegated to the Championship - to David Sullivan and David Gold last year.

Yesterday he returned with a fresh offer to gain control, announcing on Twitter: "For all you west ham fans an offer has gone to the present owners of west ham. Let's see if they accept.''

Gold told The Sun that Fernandes had not approached him directly, describing the move as "bizarre".

"You would think that to buy a football club you would approach the incumbent owners," he said. "I find it quite bizarre that anybody makes any offer for a business via Twitter."

In a statement today, Sullivan confirmed that Fernandes had since made an email offer but that it was "immediately rejected".

"He has announced this on Twitter and people can draw their own conclusions as to the seriousness of it from that," said Sullivan. "This kind of approach is very unhelpful when we have just made a big step forward as a club in our hope of returning to the Premier League, and it distracts from our main focus which is promotion."

He added that the pair were not looking to sell the club but would welcome offers from "serious" investors to "join us in rebuilding West Ham United".