Filthy lucre?

A number of the Sunday papers were running the story that David Sullivan has expressed a desire or intention to own and run Charlton Athletic Football Club. Strictly speaking, after printing the letters D-a-v-i-d S-u-l-l-i-v-a-n, I think there is a legal requirement to then qualify who he is and how he's made his money. That seems to be the way and the obvious implication is that it is in some way less acceptable perhaps than how other people earn their money.

Let me say here and now that I have no problem whatsoever with how David Sullivan has made his fortune. Pornography is a take-it-or-leave-it activity as far as I am concerned. It is bought and traded in mysterious shops without windows and sold in newsagents in opaque plastic bags. From experience, it's not that easy to access when you crave it most and not that important when you do get ready access to it. I should point out, of course, that my comments here refer to the pre-internet days although I am reliably informed that simple searches on the internet today don't make finding it a complete formality today. Enough about that already, I want to talk about David Sullivan and the possible implications for our club.

Sullivan is 60 and until recently has been part-owner with the Gold brothers of Birmingham City FC. He is an East-End boy and a West Ham fan at heart. Still living in Essex (in his Playboy mansion of course) he was automatically linked with HIS boyhood club after selling his interest in Brum but the Hammers have huge debts and may be a bridge too far for a man once reported to have a fortune of £500m. Assuming his investments have taken a pasting (like everyone else's) then you can guess on what pile he may be left with? Buying a club with reported debts of £100m may just be too much, even if it would have been his first choice. Let's face it, he chose to invest in Birmingham City at a time (16 years ago), when West Ham might have been a realistic option.

So, to Charlton Athletic then and his interest and intentions for us are being reasonably widely reported. Maybe he needs the ego-boost like the majority of his Customers or perhaps he just needs the profile? Being the figurehead at Birmingham City can't have been the greatest experience over the years even if he did have Karen Brady to soak up a lot of the immediate pressure as Chief Exec.

Charlton fans are already speculating that "Murray won't sell" to "someone like him." Not how I see it by any means. To my mind Sullivan is precisely the type of person Murray has been hoping for. He has a proven track record of running a club on a pragmatic budget, of affordable growth as well a history of delivering, even if Birmingham have failed to escape from the yo-yo cycle of promotion and relegation.

I would welcome his investment as I am sure we would see some statement of intent fairly quickly. Maybe he would commit to the redevelopment of the South Stand with promotion and I am certain he would spend relatively heavily to get us back into the Championship or beyond if we get up this season.

If I am honest, he has always struck me as "Alan Sugar Junior" which is the only downside. Not because Sugar isn't a good businessman but because he has that aggressive, sometimes single-minded, dare I say it, Jewish-businessman-approach to things (I don't know or care if Sullivan is Jewish) which can upset people very quickly. However, I'd gladly take his investment if it secures the clubs' financial future for the next five years and increases our chances of moving closer to a return to the Premier League. I only hope we don't have to have Karen Brady as part of the package.