David Sullivan: how did the pornographer rise so high in modern football? | David Sullivan

KWhile growing up in a council house in Cardiff, David Sullivan dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. Being short and stocky, he would never become an actor, but later in life the wealth he acquired through the pornography industry and the real estate world gave him an entry into sports. Sullivan discovered that the only problem was finding a club willing to roll out the welcome rug for him and his business partners David and Ralph Gold.

They were West Ham United fans and bought a stake in the east London club in 1991, but found the entrance to the venue closed. “We had no contact with the board,” the late David Gold wrote in his autobiography. “They didn’t want David Sullivan and the Golds at their football club.”

Connections to the world of adult entertainment counted against Sullivan and his friends. They stepped back and looked elsewhere. They considered moves for Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur before settling on Birmingham City, who were in management and struggling in the second tier of English football when they were bought by Sullivan and the Golds for £700,000 in March 1993.

Under different circumstances, perhaps this could be the story of how Sullivan defied the Blazers who left him out, rescued Birmingham from financial distress and eventually became West Ham’s strongest man.

Instead, it is a tenure that came to an unpleasant end, a tenure that club sources said became “chaotic” in its final days, culminating in Sullivan’s resignation on Saturday amid accusations of “inappropriate behaviour” that Sullivan described as unfounded and threatened to sue the BBC.

Many in the game will hear of Sullivan’s departure and reflect on how a pornographer managed to rise so high in the modern game.

He was no mysterious figure when he bought Birmingham, his first major football club. It was well known that Sullivan was convicted in 1982 of living off the immoral proceeds of prostitution and spent 71 days in jail until a successful appeal led to her release. He was the owner of famous tabloids Daily Sport and Sunday Sport, known for his topless photoshoots and racy stories.

For Birmingham, which is struggling financially, these concerns can be ignored. “It doesn’t matter how he makes his money,” one reporter said in a news regarding the takeover. “The desire for success is the only criterion by which a decision can be reached.” It’s an argument that doesn’t seem to have aged well.

According to officials, there were no criteria to prevent a takeover: the fit and proper person test was not introduced by the Premier League, the Football League and the Football Association until 2004, but even if it had existed in 1993 it is difficult to see how Sullivan would have gone wrong on this issue. The rule was designed to exclude those with a history of financial malpractice or corruption, not a morally questionable business history.

Now the conversation will change. His resignation will come as a relief to West Ham fans who have called for an end to Sullivan’s 16-year ownership of the club; This desire has become even more acute following last month’s relegation from the Premier League.

People at West Ham will be hoping for a clean break. But Sullivan’s curiosity is why he’s refused to leave until now. One theory is that football served to purify his reputation after his days in the porn industry; but the truth is that he was never a sympathetic figure. He has been the target of protests from West Ham fans for much of the last decade and has often faced harsh criticism from the football media for how he runs the club.

Opinions about his time in Birmingham are also mixed. Sullivan took the club to the top flight in 2002 and remained there until relegation six years later, but he and David Gold never achieved universal popularity. They are tired of the criticism. However, there was no question of them moving away from football when they were sold to Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung in 2009.

West Ham were in a financially vulnerable position in 2010 and Sullivan saw the opportunity in that vulnerability. He and Gold bought the club in January of that year.

His tenure has rarely been trouble-free. Fans have never forgiven Sullivan, Gold and Karren Brady, who quit as the club’s vice-chairman last month for the opportunistic deal that took West Ham from Upton Park to the London Stadium in 2016. But Sullivan held on. He had made plans to buy some of the Gold family’s shares. The idea was for the club to become an equal partner with one of its shareholders, Czech billionaire and Royal Mail owner Daniel Křetínsky.

Sullivan did not accept that modern football had left him behind. He was desperate to win and never looked more excited than when negotiating a transfer. He enjoyed the rise of the Premier League and the economic opportunities that came with it. But although Birmingham’s sale was worth £81.5 million, Sullivan can argue that he regularly transferred cash to West Ham and that owning a club comes at a personal financial cost.

Although unpopular with West Ham fans, there is a perception that football helps legitimize, if not purify, him. Sullivan is the one chosen by the cameras as West Ham lose. He was on the pitch when they won the Conference League in Prague in 2023. No longer the former porn baron, he appeared as one of the Premier League’s somewhat ridiculous billionaire owners. It looks cartoonish. It is a form of sports washing in itself.

It is impossible to know whether a grand, humanizing strategy exists. This is not a Middle Eastern oil state with a dodgy human rights record that bought Manchester City or Newcastle United. A man who often makes populist moves to appease his supporters, only to end up insulted by his own fan base.

In his final game as chairman of the club, he was mocked by fans when it was confirmed that West Ham would be relegated on the final day of the season. The defining image of his tenure will be his premature abandonment of his seat on the directors’ rostrum.

In that sense, football did nothing for Sullivan’s reputation. He will leave a toxic legacy at West Ham. Internally, there were fears that allegations about his personal life (all of which he denied) could cause sponsors to leave.

Lately Sullivan has become an increasingly isolated figure. With allies like Brady turning away from him professionally and accusations swirling, resignation and the threat of legal action appeared to be his last and only option.

As owner of West Ham, Sullivan realized his dream by leading the English football establishment into a bright future. Ultimately, it was the questions about his past that brought all of this to a halt.