Sullivan promises West Ham move to Olympic stadium

At a press conference this afternoon he promised to stop the club haemorraghing money as he revealed the extent of West Ham's debt to be around £110million.

The pair, former owners of Birmingham City but both lifelong West Ham fans, outlined an ambitious strategy to restore the Irons' fortunes, chief of which is to occupy the 80,000 seater stadium once the Games have finished in 2012.

Mr Sullivan said: "A major part of our strategy is that West Ham move to the Olympic Stadium.

"It's three miles from Upton Park. If we can have a huge ground we can take football back to the people, we can reduce admission prices to prices people can afford because we'd have the capacity to do it and we'd have the cheapest Premier League prices in the country. That is all part of our strategy."

There will be technical problems to overcome, not least the issue of the running track which Olympics organisers have pledged to keep at the stadium for legacy use, but Mr Sullivan is convinced the chances of the Irons moving are at worst 50-50.

Other strategies include cutting jobs at West Ham, although not among the playing staff, and encouraging other investors to bring further capital into the club.

Mr Sullivan indicated manager Gianfranco Zola's job is safe and he will meet the new owners this evening to discuss his requirements, but the future of director of football Gianluca Nani looks less assured with Mr Sullivan keen to be involved in all transfer negotiations in future.

Whether chief executive Scott Duxbury remains at Upton Park is also open to debate, with Karren Brady coming in as vice-chairman.

The deal to buy the stake in the club was only finalised at 11 o'clock last night after very detailed negotiations, and both men admitted they would not have been involved had it not been for their emotional attachment to West Ham.

It's not yet clear how much money will be available to Zola to strengthen the squad before the end of the transfer window, although it's likely there will be some loan signings before February 1. Mr Sullivan is confident the Irons will avoid relegation.

He said: "We've got every confidence in both the manager and the squad. We accept the squad is a llittle bit to thin at the moment. It's very imbalanced squad, it's a squad with a mass of midfielders and really short in every other position, particularly strikers."