West Ham co-owner David Sullivan has blamed his side's "poor away performances" for his decision not to attend Sunday's defeat away to Manchester City.
Neither Sullivan, fellow joint-chairman David Gold nor vice chairman Karren Brady travelled to Eastlands for the 2-1 loss at the hands of Roberto Mancini's side, choosing instead to watch their relegation-threatened team play on television.
"Watching our poor away performances week after week, and not having the ability to influence things, has impacted on us," Sullivan admitted.
"My family think I'm mad devoting so much time and money to the club and, as the match was on TV, I decided to watch it on TV.
"We couldn't influence the result, we donated the cost of private plane to a charity for terminally ill children, we thought that would do more good.
"Had it not been on TV we would have been there. None of us draw any salary or expenses from West Ham United. We are not £20k-£60k-a-week footballers.
"We only took 1,100 supporters. Like us the bulk of the West Ham United supporters preferred to watch it on TV. We'll be at Wigan as will 4,500 supporters."
