Karren Brady Stayed at West Ham Despite Knowing About Sullivan’s Team Bans, New Claims Reveal

Baroness Karren Brady stayed in one of West Ham United’s top leadership roles for nearly two years after discovering that co-owner David Sullivan had been barred from contacting the club’s women’s and youth teams over safeguarding issues.

Brady, the club’s former vice-chair who left the post in April, accepted through her lawyers that she learned in July 2023 the Football Association had flagged concerns about Sullivan. Those concerns followed a complaint linked to a historical allegation from the 1980s.

Even after becoming aware of the matter, Brady remained at West Ham until the final stages of last season. Her position, according to her legal representatives, was based on the principle of the “presumption of innocence,” as Sullivan denied the allegation.

The disclosure is likely to intensify scrutiny of the Apprentice personality and Conservative peer, who has cultivated a high-profile image as an advocate for women’s rights and a critic of influential men accused of misusing their power.

In a letter sent to the BBC on Friday, Brady’s lawyers confirmed that she knew measures had been put in place limiting Sullivan’s access to West Ham’s women’s side and academy operations.

They also stressed that Brady was not involved in making that decision.

According to the letter, Baroness Brady ‘was not involved in the decision made by West Ham in conjunction with the local authority and the FA to impose restrictions on Sullivan’s access to the club’s women’s and youth teams’.

Instead, her role was to ‘ensure the club’s established and robust safeguarding structures, procedures and necessary confidentialities were followed and respected throughout’.

Her lawyers said she had ‘no knowledge’ of the allegations revealed by the investigation and added that she was ‘not involved in, nor did she witness… [any] of the incidents alleged in the reports’.

Sullivan has categorically denied all allegations against him.

Baroness Brady’s legal team also rejected suggestions that remaining at West Ham while promoting women’s rights amounted to hypocrisy.

‘There is no inconsistency or hypocrisy between our client advocating for the protection of women and respecting the confidential safeguarding investigation and process that was being managed by the appropriate safeguarding professionals and statutory authorities,’ they said.

It comes as Daniel Kretinsky, the Royal Mail owner, is set to become the biggest West Ham United shareholder as the family of David Gold agree to sell him an additional stake in the club. 

His shares will rise from 27 to 43 per cent after he agreed a deal with Vanessa Gold, who inherited her part of West Ham from her father David when he died in 2023. 

Baroness Brady, 57, has worked alongside Sullivan for much of her professional life.

After beginning her career at his Sport Newspapers business, she was appointed managing director of Birmingham City at the age of 23 following Sullivan’s takeover of the club in 1993.

When Sullivan became part of the consortium that bought West Ham in 2010, Baroness Brady joined him as vice-chair and went on to play a prominent role in securing the club’s controversial move to the Olympic Stadium.

Her departure from West Ham in April, five matches before the end of the Premier League season, prompted speculation after she issued a farewell statement thanking ‘the board, management, players, staff and supporters’ without mentioning Sullivan.

Questions about Baroness Brady’s loyalty to powerful men facing allegations are not new.

In her 2012 autobiography, Strong Woman, she wrote: ‘I have had David Sullivan in my life for virtually the whole of my career, and I know, if things get tough, that he will be on my side.

‘Loyalty goes both ways. And loyalty is created by mutual respect, by promoting people and allowing them to take credit for their work, and standing in front of them when things have not gone right.’

The peer has previously defended her decision to work within businesses linked to the adult industry.

‘People tend to jump to conclusions about the pornography associations of Sport Newspapers, but I wasn’t working on any top-shelf titles,’ she wrote.

‘I was working on the Sunday Sport, and the paper was very different in those days. Nonetheless I still get criticism about that time – people say, ‘How can you stand up for women’s rights when you worked in the porn business?’

‘Well, the answer is that I didn’t work in the porn business. To me, that criticism is a bit like saying, ‘Sky has an adult channel, so if you work for Sky that means you work in pornography.’ Of course it doesn’t.’

Baroness Brady has also publicly criticised men accused of sexual misconduct.

Writing about Harvey Weinstein, she described him as ‘a serial predator with such colossal amounts of power that people think they have no choice but to put up with grotesque advances if they want a career in Hollywood’.

She also wrote: ‘What Michael Fallon [who resigned as defence secretary in 2017 over inappropriate flirtation], Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey [who was accused of sexually harassing actors] are accused of abusing their power in an organisation to get someone to do something they don’t want to do, or tolerate something they don’t like.

West Ham United fans hold up a flag depicting David Sullivan, Joint-Chair of West Ham United, and Karren Brady, Vice Chair of West Ham United, in protest prior to the Premier League match in October 2025 

‘Lots of men are asking: ‘When is it appropriate to touch a colleague?’ If you are in doubt, how about… NEVER?’

In another column, Baroness Brady said: ‘It’s not just film. There is a Harvey Weinstein in every industry – the man at the top who abuses their power, who has no respect for women, who thinks women owe him something and it is a perfectly reasonable trade-off to exchange sex for work.’

Baroness Brady has been a member of the House of Lords since 2014 and has appeared alongside Lord Sugar on BBC One’s The Apprentice for the past 16 years.