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

David Sullivan watching a Premier League match between West Ham United and Crystal Palace last year. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP View image in fullscreen David Sullivan watching a Premier League match between West Ham United and Crystal Palace last year. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP David Sullivan: how did the pornographer rise so high in modern football? Sullivan hoped football would legitimise him but claims about historical conduct have led to his resignation from West Ham Sullivan steps down at West Ham to fight claims about private life W hen David Sullivan was growing up in a council house in Cardiff, he dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. Short and squat, he would never be a player, but later in life the fortune he built through the pornography industry and the property world gave him a route into the sport. The only problem, Sullivan discovered, was finding a club willing to roll out the welcome carpet for him and his business partners, David and Ralph Gold. They were fans of West Ham United and bought a stake in the east London club in 1991, only to find entry to the boardroom closed. “We had no contact with the board,” the late David Gold wrote in his autobiography. “They simply did not want David Sullivan and the Golds at their football club.” Connections to the world of adult entertainment counted against Sullivan and his associates. Knocked back, they looked elsewhere. They considered moves for Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur before settling on Birmingham City , who were in administration and struggling in the second tier of English football when they were bought by Sullivan and the Golds for £700,000 in March 1993. View image in fullscreen David Gold (left) and David Sullivan at a Birmingham match in 2009. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian In different circumstances, perhaps this would be the story of how Sullivan defied the blazers who shut him out, about how he took Birmingham out of financial difficulty and eventually became the most powerful man at West Ham. Instead, it is one with an unsavoury ending, and a tenure which club sources say had become “chaotic” in its final days, culminating in Sullivan’s resignation on Saturday amid accusations of “improper conduct” which Sullivan describes as false, and over which he has threatened to sue the BBC. Many inside the game will be taking in the news of Sullivan’s departure and reflecting on how a pornographer managed to rise as high in the modern game as he did. When he bought Birmingham, his first major football club, he was not a mysterious figure. It was well known that Sullivan was convicted of living off immoral earnings from prostitution in 1982 and spent 71 days in prison before a successful appeal led to his release. He was the owner of the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport, the notorious red-top tabloids known for their topless photoshoots and salacious stories. For Birmingham, financially stricken, those concerns could be overlooked. “How he’s made his money is unimpo