West Ham United co-owner David Sullivan had pledged not to speak publicly anymore after protests from fans last season.
West Ham‘s owners became infamous for the very public way they conduct their business, a fact not lost on the club’s supporters.
Hammers fans protested against David Sullivan and David Gold and their vice-chairman Karren Brady last season over the way they were running the club and demanded change.
Fans were unhappy with everything from what they feel are broken promises over transfer ambition, spending, the move to the London Stadium and the board’s conduct in public.
The Hammers faithful felt embarrassed by Sullivan and Gold’s public interviews on team and club affairs and had to suffer Sullivan’s sons Jack and Dave discussing West Ham matters on Twitter for a number of seasons.
Then there is Brady’s regular columns in divisive tabloid newspaper The Sun where she too discusses club matters in detail.
That even directly impacted West Ham’s ability to sign a player after the unpopular Brady upset Leicester City with comments she made in one column, with the Foxes later blocking David Moyes’ move for striker Islam Slimani as a result, as reported by The Mirror.
But back in March Sullivan made a pledge to cease interviews in a meeting with the West Ham United Independent Supporters Association.
In minutes – which were corroborated by Sullivan in the interests of fairness – sent to members following the meeting back on March 20th, Sullivan pledged to stop interviews but admitted he was powerless to stop Brady continuing with her column.
“David Sullivan accepted that not all the press interviews he had made were helpful and that both his sons had more or less stopped tweeting about the football club,” the minutes read.
“Some of the retweets of David Gold (were raised) and it was agreed these were unfortunate. David Sullivan said that he no longer will give interviews to the press.”
While not an interview with the press, Sullivan appears to have backtracked on his pledge to stop airing club business in the public domain with a transfer update on the club’s official site.
After five quality signings and with the promise of more to come it is exciting times for Hammers fans.
And according to Sullivan things might be about to get even better on the transfer front.
“We are delighted to have secured two very exciting signings (Jack Wilshere and Andriy Yarmolenko) in the space of three days,” Sullivan told whufc.com.
“As a board, we assured our supporters that we would be looking to bring in high-calibre players…
“We also hope to have more exciting news regarding incomings in the near future as we aim to provide Manuel with the strongest squad possible.”
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