A women's football “pioneer” has won a divorce court fight with her Bitcoin millionaire ex-husband over the £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 £7 million nine-bed home with seven bathrooms and a home cinema in north London, and ploughed a fortune into building a rental property portfolio.
Mrs Culligan also founded Women’s Championship football side, the London City Lionesses, which she ran as chairman until 2023, having broken away from its roots as Millwall FC's women's team.
But the couple split in acrimonious circumstances in 2020, with Mrs Culligan blaming her ex for walking out on the marriage without explanation.
He on the other hand 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, but went to the High Court in a fight over how to do that, with Mrs Culligan battling to stay in their former home.
Mr Culligan wanted it sold to provide more liquid cash for the pair to split, but a judge has now ruled that Mrs Culligan should be allowed to stay in the house.
Mr Justice MacDonald has made an order, handing each of the couple about £13.7m worth of assets, with Mrs Culligan getting the house and her ex retaining the bulk of his business interests and also getting the buy-to-let properties.
The court heard the couple met in 1982 and began living together in 1985 before marrying while living in Japan in 1992 and having three children.
They bought their home the following year, and began a renovation of the property in 2018.
Mr Culligan claims the renovation, eventually costing £2.1m, led to the breakdown of their marriage, and he also cited her alleged “overbearing approach”, claiming 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 said left her needing counselling.
The judge said 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.
He had also later made a fortune after a £10,000 purse of Bitcoin, which he purchased in 2012, soared to a value of about £20million by 2017.
The currency had been used to fund the couple’s business interests and the family’s “living expenses”, the house renovation and acquiring property in the US.
The judge said Mrs Culligan had played a key role in removing the Millwall women's side from the umbrella of the men's team and rebranding them as the London City Lionesses and becoming chairman.
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.
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 now published, 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 and arguing that his assets are largely tied up in business
The judge ruled that the couple had enjoyed a “good” standard of living while married, but questioned whether Mrs Culligan’s “needs as a single person extend to a nine bedroom, seven bathroom property”.
But he also found she “has an emotional connection to the former matrimonial home to a degree that was not apparent in the evidence of the husband”.
“I am satisfied that a fair distribution of the assets can be achieved without the need to sell the former matrimonial home,” he concluded.
He said the tax liabilities which Mr Culligan has in the US should be shared between the couple and that she should take on some of the risk of the business interests.
He made an order under which she keeps the couple's former home, but Mr Culligan gets their rental properties and will be paid £750,000 by his ex.
Although Mr Culligan keeps most of his business interests, part of Mrs Culligan’s £13.6m package will be made up of the more illiquid and thus risky shares, said the judge.
“There must be some sharing of the illiquid...asset, although the wife’s share should be kept to the minimum amount required to ensure fidelity to the principle of fairness,” he said.
He said that if Mrs Culligan did not take on some of the illiquid assets as part of her package, there was a risk Mr Culligan would be left with “very limited or no liquid funds to house himself”.
“This will permit a division of assets that properly balances the need for sufficient housing provision for the husband with the need to avoid the wife having to bear too greater share of the illiquid assets, with the risks and difficulties consequent thereon,” he concluded..
