Carson Yeung to snub David Sullivan and miss Birmingham's trip to West Ham - Exclusive
Published 23:00 09/02/10 By James Nursey
Carson Yeung is set to miss Birmingham’s game tonight at West Ham - and snub David Sullivan’s olive branch.
The Hong Kong tycoon is in Paris on business and unlikely to be back in time to attend this evening’s Premier League match.
Sullivan hoped to present Yeung with a blue and white gold and diamond broach and cufflinks specially made when he owned City.
Sullivan intended the gesture to be a peace offering following frosty relations since Yeung’s original aborted attempt to buy the club in 2007.
Yeung finally got Birmingham from Sullivan and the Gold brothers last October in an £81.5million deal.
But relations between both camps remain tense after Yeung called in the West Midlands Police Economic Crime Team to probe the club’s books.
Yeung was infuriated at inheriting liabilities totalling around £11million on arrival at St Andrews plus a huge bill for Karren Brady’s settlement package.
He was also astonished to learn Sullivan and Gold paid themselves a combined consultancy fee advance of £420,000 before leaving.
Sullivan and Gold have since bought a controlling stake in West Ham for £50million.
Now a delegation of Birmingham officials are due at Upton Park tonight but the party is unlikely to include chairman Yeung.
City vice-chairman Peter Pannu said: “Carson remains concerned about the bills he picked up.
“We are looking at it and whether there was an element of fraudulent misrepresentation.
“Carson has had to put in around £7.5million to cover backlogs and our due diligence team is still working away.
“There may or may not be certain authorities involved when we have concluded our investigation.
“The official conversations we had with the other side, they were willing to return some money to the club, which was rejected by Carson.
“The sum of money we want back to wrap it all up is substantial.”
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