West Ham co-owner David Sullivan has mouths agog tonight with his comments on the West Ham-Man United delayed kick-off.
You may have seen earlier that the Manchester United team bus was given an 'Istanbul 1993' style welcome as it trundled towards the Boleyn Ground. Bottles were pelted at the coach windows.
Failing to comment on the bottle-tossing display laid on by the home fans, Sullivan instead attacked Manchester United for not turning up earlier. He says that the visitors should have arrived at the ground at 4.00pm.
He expressed sympathy for the West Ham fans, not discriminating between bottle tossers and the rest.
I'm gravely disappointed, more for our supporters. What people forget is they've got trains and buses to get home and we've got a wonderful, wonderful show after the game for them. many just can't stay anymore.
Man United should have got here at 4pm. They know it's our last game. They had the same problem at Tottenham a few weeks ago. I think the police and officials have been kind. I'd make them kick-off at 7.45pm if I was in charge.
In an interview on BBC Five Live, he lamented that the Manchester United players were reluctant to walk to the ground because of some prissy health and safety reasons. We can only guess at why the Man United players were so reluctant to hop off the bus and leg it the rest of the way.
David Sullivan on @bbc5live upset at late KO “the (MU) players didn’t want to walk to the ground for health and safety reasons" Imagine that
— Jacqui Oatley (@JacquiOatley) May 10, 2016
He confidently asserted that there would be no damage to the United coach. The police, he said, had been too kind to the United fans and if, by some act of grotesque administrative folly, he had been in charge of things, he'd have made them kick-off at 7.45.
West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan: "If you check the coach there won't be any damage to it." May need to revisit that one David.
— Phil McNulty (@philmcnulty) May 10, 2016
Sullivan, who is a former movie producer (his titles include 'Playbirds' and 'Emmanuelle in Soho'), has a rather loose tongue in front of the camera and is not afraid of letting fly with contrary opinions.
(His co-owner David Gold has seen some mild controversy though this seems to purely relate to his over-generosity when it comes to dispensing retweets).
Last week, Sullivan gave his rather graceless verdict (idiotic might be a bit harsh) on Leicester City's triumph. Leicester, he said, had been given eleven penalties, suffered no injuries, and had lashings of good luck. Less than forty-eight hours after their League win was confirmed, one would almost have to admire Sullivan's determination to piss all over a feelgood story.
I know how they’ve done it, they’ve got 11 penalties, lady luck shined on them. They’ve had virtually no injuries. They’ve only used 18 players all season.
They’ve had two players who’ve played out of their skin, scored more goals than they’ve ever scored in their entire lives.
They signed a fantastic midfielder. One of their big signings came good, and that’s how they’ve done it. You don’t see them being massively better than you [West Ham] are.
At the start of this season, Sullivan hindered Charlie Austin's attempts to find a new club after West Ham refused to part with the £15 million needed to purchase him.
On the Knees Up Mother Brown podcast, Sullivan said that their interest cooled after he got word that Austin had no ligaments in his knee.
They say he has no ligaments in his knee, who knows?
To sign a £15m player is a big risk. He could go on for years, but knowing our luck his knee will go in his first game and that's the end of it. If we had £100m to spend we may say 'we'll spend £15m and gamble one-sixth of our budget'. But it's not one-sixth of our budget, it'd smash our budget to bits.
And he didn't keep Queens Park Rangers up. If he'd kept them up single-handedly you might say it was different - and a few of those goals were penalties.
Austin was moved to correct the record and answer this 'outrageous slur' on his reputation.
— Charlie Austin (@chazaustin9) August 20, 2015
