David Sullivan wants out at Birmingham City...

David Sullivan wants out at Birmingham City...

... don't panic, he's wanted out for a long time. It's a topic of much discussion on the Blues message boards this morning, but Sullivan has been making these comments for donkeys years.

On Sunday, less than ten days after the club moved forward a fixture with Stoke City to 11.30am on Sunday morning for Sky to televise the fixture, less than 16,000 fans attended the game at St Andrews. Blues won a scrappy game 1-0 by the narrowest of margins (performance as well as result), and those fans who did attend - including a small, select band of non-season ticket holders who paid £29 for the "experience" - vented their frustration at the manager's negative tactics and seemingly inability to drop Damien Johnson, Blues' captain (in name only - as we saw at Colchester, Stephen Clemence is the real leader on the field). We've been here before with Johnson - a scapegoat for the manager's continuing favouritism.

But that's a different rant, one that has permeated this blog for well over two years now. The issue here is with David Sullivan, who attacked those fans who didn't attend the game in the match day programme. The problem with Blues is that they milk every last penny they can from the fanbase. Blues fans are - when it suits them - just customers of a business to be squeezed, but when things get tough Sullivan has the cheek to claim his customers - sorry fans - are being disloyal. You can't have it both ways, Mr Sullivan.

When Sullivan and the Golds rode into the Birmingham in 1993, they saved the club from probable extinction. Let's not pretend they didn't. Unfortunately, they got used to the publicity of being the club's saviours. Behind the scenes they quickly turned a ramshackle outfit into a professional organisation that has proved incredibly adept at squeezing money from its loyal fanbase. The club is now solvent and self-sufficient financially - we spent more than any other Championship club prior to the season starting, but we made over £12m from the sale of two players, and we didn't spend that amount on players. The wage bill dropped in line with our relegated status and so the club has gone on with tightened belts.

But the idea of being white knights was too attractive to our owners, who have made loud noises ever since about dipping their money into their pockets to fund players. The last time they did this was last month, when we signed Rowan Vine for £3.5m from Luton Town. After the self-publication involved with that act of generosity, they forgot to mention that by the end of the month we'd offloaded David Dunn to Blackburn for 750K (worth a possible £2.5m over time if he stays fit long enough) and Matthew Upson to West Ham for £6m. Upson's sale didn't net quite that much for the club, but it clearly paid for Vine, because it completed on transfer deadline day with no replacement coming into the club.

I have no problem with this - the club is paying its way. But David Sullivan and company don't like that - they want to return to the era where they were the club's saviours, so they keep twisting figures (£10m for Mikael Forssell?) and brow-beating and telling us how lucky we are to have them at the club. We are, but it's for their business acumen, not their generosity. Since Blues have been in the Premiership - and probably for some years before that - this club has paid its way. If the owners occasionally advance the money for a player, they do - but that's all it is, an advance. Player sales and other income - including that from the fans' own pockets - will eventually go back into their pockets. Fair enough, but don't pretend it was a gift when it was a loan.

In all the media attention that's surrounded Sullivan's latest outburst to a "select" band of specially invited journalists, he admitted that he's spent £10m of his own money on Blues in the past 14 years. Sounds impressive, but for someone worth £600m, it's peanuts. If Sullivan was worth 200K, it would be the equivalent of his spending 3.3K over 14 years, or £235 a year. That's less than most people pay for their season tickets, never mind the other money they pour into the club.

It boils down to this: the Sullivan and Golds rode into Birmingham in 1993 and saved the club from extinction, and they have our thanks for that. But while their business acumen is still welcome here, their generosity is not what it was. If we're looking at them purely as benefactors then their job was done... 8-10 years ago. Perhaps the biggest fear they have is that when they've gone, they'll find the club continues without them - and if there isn't the endless hype, spin, tantrums and bad PR that have we've come to associate with Sullivan in particular, that won't necessarily be such a bad thing.