Hammers chief appeals to Curbishley

Posted Sunday, January 24, 2010 by PA

David Sullivan has invited Alan Curbishley to invest his financial pay-off from West Ham back into the cash-strapped Barclays Premier League club.

Former Hammers boss Curbishley won his case for wrongful dismissal against the club in November and is still awaiting settlement. New West Ham co-owner Sullivan admitted this week the club are £110million in debt, and has been scathing in his criticism of the club's previous owners.

Sullivan and business partner David Gold face an uphill task to balance the books at Upton Park and are seeking new investors, and the former Birmingham owner believes Curbishley could go a long way to aiding those efforts. Sullivan told People Sport: "Alan will get somewhere between £1.25million and £3.25million, and we'd love him to invest his settlement with us in West Ham."

He added: "It would be marvellous, I could think of nothing better, but I don't think he's going to be doing it.

"We're hoping to start seeing people we hope will invest with us by the middle of the week.

"We've got a few people who've got a gold card who we're going to see and we're hoping they'll join us in the battle to keep West Ham alive.

"We're talking about substantial sums of money from some very rich people and we're hoping in a few months' time that they will have signed up for the fight.

"We will show them what we did at Birmingham, where all the investors doubled or quadrupled their money."