For two years, one of football’s most powerful owners has been quietly banned from his own club’s women’s and youth teams, and almost nobody knew about it.
David Sullivan, the billionaire co-owner of West Ham United, has been prohibited from contact with the club’s women’s and academy setups since 2023, following a safeguarding investigation launched by the Football Association. The ban has remained largely out of public view until now, raising uncomfortable questions about transparency in the game.
The FA opened the investigation after concerns were raised, though the governing body has declined to specify the precise nature of the allegations that triggered it. Sullivan, who has co-owned West Ham since 2010 alongside David Gold’s estate and vice-chairman Karren Brady, has not been charged with any criminal offence.
What makes this particularly striking is the scale of what Sullivan is being kept away from. West Ham’s women’s team plays in the Women’s Super League, England’s top tier of women’s football. The academy produces young players from the age of eight upwards. These are not peripheral operations.
A source close to the club described the situation as “deeply uncomfortable” for those working within the academy structure, with staff left uncertain for months about the precise boundaries of the restrictions.
West Ham declined to comment publicly on the matter. The FA, for its part, confirmed only that a safeguarding process had been followed in line with its standard procedures. That kind of carefully worded non-answer will do little to satisfy supporters who feel they deserve a clearer picture.
Safeguarding investigations in football are, by their nature, sensitive. The FA has protocols specifically designed to protect individuals involved, whether accusers or the accused, and those protocols exist for good reason. But two years is a long time to keep something of this significance under wraps.
Sullivan remains active in the club’s wider operations and has not stepped back from his ownership role at large. Whether the FA’s investigation is still ongoing, or whether any formal findings have been reached, remains unclear.
As women’s football continues its remarkable growth in this country, the question of how clubs govern themselves off the pitch, and who is held accountable when things go wrong, matters more than ever.
