Franck slams Birmingham co-owner

Birmingham’s Franck Queudrue jumped to his own defence last night after he was branded “rubbish” by club co-owner David Sullivan.

On a day when recriminations into Blues’ relegation from the Premier League began in earnest, Sullivan laid into former manager Steve Bruce and his acquisitions last summer.

Asked for the reasons behind Birmingham’s immediate return to the Coca-Cola Championship following last summer’s promotion, Sullivan said: “We bought a pile of rubbish.”

He named Queudrue – a £2m signing from Middlesbrough – and Ghanaian goalkeeper Richard Kingson – a free transfer from Ankaraspor – as two of the worst buys.

He added: “Bottom line, we didn’t improve the team last summer.”

Birmingham’s other close-season signings were Fabrice Muamba for £4m, Olivier Kapo for £3m, Garry O’Connor for £2.6m, Liam Ridgewell for £2m and free transfers Stuart Parnaby and Daniel De Ridder.

French defender Queudrue wasted little time in responding to Sullivan and insisted he was not selected frequently enough by Bruce’s replacement Alex McLeish for a fair assessment to be made.

“It’s horrendous. Obviously I cannot stay in a club where the chairman makes comments like that about the players,” Queudrue, who made just 14 league starts this term, told 'talkSPORT'.

“He (Sullivan) should have pointed the finger at the players who have played most of the season.

“I don’t like to say that because I’m a team player. I won’t say anything bad about a player through the radio.”

He added: “I didn’t get enough games. He says he can name a list (of rubbish players). So I want to see the list and who’s on there. I didn’t play so I don’t know how to take that.

“I always respect the manager’s decision even if sometimes I felt I should have played.

“I stayed fit, I played all the reserve games that I could – I have nothing to worry about when it comes to my professionalism.

“You can ask anyone who comes to see us train or you can ask the players and they will tell you the truth. I cannot accept that criticism from someone I have not seen all year.”

Sullivan, meanwhile, is desperate to offload his stake in Blues after claiming he and his fellow directors were subjected to “venomous” abuse from a section of the St Andrews crowd during Sunday’s match with Blackburn.

A 4-1 victory was not enough to save McLeish’s side from relegation and Sullivan last night claimed he was willing to sell up for around £12m.

The multi-millionaire businessman, who acquired the club along with David and Ralph Gold in 1993, said: “I’ve got my young kids with me, my kids are in tears. I can’t repeat what was chanted.

“It’s all f’s and c’s and w’s, and things like that, which I don’t need in my life.

“It isn’t part of the game, as far as I’m concerned. It isn’t acceptable.”

He added: “It’s the venom. It wasn’t just half a dozen people. At the end, you’ve probably got 1,000 people, 1,500 people on the pitch that ripped down goalposts. Those people ruined it for everybody.

“We’ve never had it before, in 16 years.

“We’ve given our all for the club. The club was bankrupt when we got there.

“We’ve been relegated by one point. We just missed out.”