Sullivan wants groundshare with Villa

“We’ve been talking to them for a long time about erecting an illuminated sign on the stand and they won’t let us,” Sullivan told the B'ham Evening Mail.

“To be honest, it’s wearing me down. In 10 years we’ve had nothing off the council, other than a £40,000 loan which we had to repay back at 10 per cent interest.

“We wanted to buy the land opposite the ground on the Kop side. We spent a fortune on the plans and they ended up turning it into a retail park.

“The old block of flats behind the Main Stand have caused us problems as well. We’ve had to take them on in order to get planning permission should we redevelop the stand.

“The trouble is that Birmingham’s council prefer to put money into the arts, ballet and, I’m not being racist here, all sorts of ethnic festivals.

"Football is bottom of the pile to them and I don’t think they realise how important it is to the average punter in the street.

“Manchester City have been given a 48,000-seater stadium by their council and we lost out on a player, David Seaman, to them because of the revenue they will generate from it.

“I honestly believe in this city it should be like the Milan clubs in Italy, who share a council-backed stadium.

“Both ourselves and Aston Villa should play at the same venue. If they provided us with a new stadium everyone would accept it and it would stop a lot of animosity between the supporters.”