How David Sullivan has responded to Amanda Staveley's £300m West Ham buy-out offer

David Sullivan has rebuffed Amanda Staveley's opening offer to buy him out of West Ham United.

Last week, Vanessa Gold confirmed that she plans to sell her late father's 25.1 per cent stake of the club to a consortium led by Staveley.

The Yorkshire-born financier is working alongside her husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi, who were previously owners at Newcastle United.

Staveley has set her sights on being major owners of West Ham, but to do that she would need to buy the shares of either ex-Irons chairman Sullivan or Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.

Sullivan owns 38.8 per cent of the East London giants, while Kretinsky's 1890s Holdings owns 27 per cent. As well as the 25.1 shares formerly held by David Gold, other shareholders include J Albert Smith via WHU LLC (8%) and the remaining 1.1 per cent is owned by other investors.

Staveley is going in hard to be West Ham's majority owner - but Sullivan has other ideas, based on the latest reports.

David Sullivan's stance on Amanda Staveley talks

Although he's been forced to resign from his post as West Ham's chairman due to allegations about his past behaviour to women, Sullivan is set to "play hard ball" over selling his shares.

According to ex-Sun journalist Alan Nixon, writing via Patreon on Wednesday, Sullivan previously valued his 38.8 per cent shareholding at being worth "billions".

Staveley is looking to buy him out for £300m but Sullivan wants "big money" and has "batterd off the initial figures being offered" by the consortium.

Nixon adds that if she can't agree a deal with Sullivan, Staveley will be the latest to join as a minority shareholder at a split-owned club.

Staveley's blueprint to transform West Ham

After being relegated from the Premier League and seeing long-serving chairman Sullivan resign in disgrace, West Ham are a club that's in a desperate state.

While many are expecting them to bounce straight back to the Premier League, the Hammers will have many remaining issues that will need solving even if they do instantly return to the top flight.

One of them is the London Stadium

CityAM claims that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan open to West Ham buying the former Olympic Stadium, which is currently being rented by the club at a cost of £19m-a-year to the taxpayer.

Should that happen, the fans who miss Upton Park might get their wish of the stadium being made more into a football venue and not a lifeless bowl.