A former women’s football club owner has won a divorce court fight with her Bitcoin millionaire ex-husband over their £7million family home.
Diane Culligan, 63, and financier ex Anthony, 62, lived a lavish lifestyle funded by his Bitcoin fortune after he turned a £10,000 crypto purse into £20million.
They shared a £7m nine-bed home with seven bathrooms and a home cinema, in Primrose Hill, north London, and ploughed a fortune into building a rental property portfolio.
Mrs Culligan also founded Women’s Championship football side London City Lionesses after it broke away from Millwall FC – until she sold the team to a US businesswoman after the players begged her to find investment or sell up.
The Culligans split in acrimonious circumstances in 2020, with Mrs Culligan blaming her ex for walking out on the marriage without explanation.
Crypto millionaire Mr Culligan, on the other hand – whose firm, SETL, had sponsored the club – blamed ‘tensions’ surrounding a £2.1million renovation of their house and his wife’s ‘overbearing’ and ‘irrational’ behaviour for the split.
The former couple agreed that their £27.3m fortune should be split equally – ‘one of the few sensible concessions’ they had been ‘capable’ of making – but went to the High Court after disagreeing over how exactly the fortune should be distributed.
Mrs Culligan wanted to stay in their former home while Mr Culligan wanted it sold to provide more liquid cash for the pair to split.
Diane Culligan was chair of the London City Lionesses after they broke away from Millwall FC
Her husband Anthony, meanwhile, is a computer programmer turned cryptocurrency entrepreneur who turned a £10,000 Bitcoin investment into £20million
The pair had disagreed on how to split their assets in a divorce settlement – with Mr Culligan keen to sell their plush Primrose Hill home (pictured)
Judge Mr Justice MacDonald has now ruled in her favour on the issue, allowing her to stay in the house.
He made an order handing the couple about £13.7m worth of assets each, with Mrs Culligan getting the house, and her ex getting the buy-to-let properties and retaining the bulk of his business interests.
The court heard the couple met in 1982 and began living together in 1985 before marrying while living in Japan in 1992, having three children.
They bought their home in Primrose Hill, one of the capital’s most desirable neighbourhoods, the following year.
They began a renovation of the house in 2018, eventually costing £2.1m, which Mr Culligan claimed led to the breakdown of their marriage.
He also cited her ‘overbearing approach,’ saying she had twice physically restrained him from leaving when he had tried to walk out.
However, Mrs Culligan blamed him for the split, claiming he had ‘walked out of the marriage without explanation,’ which she claimed left her needing counselling.
The family’s wealth derived from a payout Mr Culligan received following a business dispute, which was ploughed into a lucrative buy-to-let portfolio, the court heard.
He had also later made a fortune after he bought a £10,000 purse of Bitcoin in 2012, which, soared to a value of about £20million by 2017.
He used the cryptocurrency to fund their business interests and ‘living expenses’, as well as the renovation of the Primrose Hill house and the acquisition of US property.
It was around this time that Mrs Culligan played a key role in disentangling the Millwall women’s team from the men’s team, rebranding them as London City Lionesses and appointing herself chair.
In 2019, the couple set up a company, with Mrs Culligan as the sole shareholder, which was used to purchase the Lionesses, with her husband becoming a director.
However, the club was then sold in 2023, with Mrs Culligan – who the judge said describes herself as a ‘pioneer’ in women’s football – to continue on as a £750,000-a-year consultant for four years.
At the time of the sale to Michele Kang – who also owns National Women’s Soccer League side Washington Spirit and a majority stake in Lyon – she said she was ‘thrilled to be handing over the reins’.
But the Lionesses had been struggling along with no permanent manager. All 20 players co-signed an email, sent by then-captain Harley Bennett, urging Mrs Culligan to find new investment or a buyer.
Mrs Culligan sold the London City Lionesses in 2023 after players sent her an email begging her to find new investment or a new owner
The club is now owned by American sports entrepreneur and businesswoman Michele Kang
Mrs Culligan filed for divorce in 2022 and the case went before Mr Justice MacDonald in November, when he was asked to divide up the parties’ assets.
In a judgment, he said the former couple agreed that neither of them should get more than a half share of their fortune, but disagreed on how it should be split.
Mrs Culligan was keen to keep the family home, where she lives, while Mr Culligan wanted it sold, pointing to an impending tax bill in the US which needs to be paid before he can buy his own home.
Ruling, the judge said: ‘The starting point is that it is accepted by both parties in this case that there will be a broadly equal division of the assets.
‘This is one of the few sensible concessions that the parties have been capable of making between them during the course of these protracted proceedings and is clearly appropriate.’
While the 40-year marriage had been one of ‘equals’ in which both had contributed, the judge said, the Culligans were not ‘impressive witnesses’ in court.
Her decision to take £3m from the club sale as annual £750,000 payments over four years after the Lionesses’ sale amounted to ‘deferred consideration’ and had been an attempt to ‘disguise assets as future income,’ he said.
And he took a moment to question how, as a newly single woman, Mrs Culligan needed a nine-bedroom, seven-bathroom home, even with at least one if not two of their adult children living with her.
‘Against this, I accept that the wife has an emotional connection to the former matrimonial home to a degree that was not apparent in the evidence of the husband,’ Mr Justice MacDonald added.
‘Within that latter context, I am satisfied that a fair distribution of the assets can be achieved without the need to sell the former matrimonial home.’
As well as keeping their rental properties, Mr Culligan will also receive a £750,000 payment from his ex. Mrs Culligan will also share some of the ‘illiquid’, riskier assets in the name of ‘fairness’ so he can afford to buy himself a new home.
The Lionesses continue to play in the Women’s Championship – with former Paris Saint-Germain manager Jocelyn Prêcheur appointed to lead the team last July under Kang’s ownership.
