Hull City Owner Hits Back at Pundits Who Mocked Premier League Survival Chances
Hull City owner Acun Ilicali has accused pundits Joe Cole and Carlton Cole of mocking a club that earned its place in the Premier League, after the pair dismissed Hull's survival prospects on their podcast.
Joe Cole, the former Chelsea and England midfielder, said on The Dressing Room — a podcast he co-hosts with Carlton Cole and Wayne Bridge, all ex-top-flight players — that he had turned down the chance to work as a pundit at Hull's opening match and would be "stunned if they stayed up." He also described Hull as having "come in through the back door," a reference to their promotion via the Championship play-off final at Wembley in May, when a last-minute winner against Middlesbrough sent them up. BBC Sport
Ilicali fired back on social media, calling it disappointing to see his city criticised by people who should know better. Two former players making fun of a deservedly promoted club, he said, was more laughable than anything they were laughing at. Hull Daily Mail
The remarks sting because of where Hull were not long ago. In 2025, they survived relegation from the Championship — the tier below the Premier League — to League One on goal difference alone, the slimmest possible margin. Twelve months later they were celebrating at Wembley. This season is their first in the top flight since 2017.
Hull have not been idle since going up. The club spent £70m on new signings in the summer of 2025, a serious outlay for a newly promoted side and a clear signal that Ilicali intends to back the project with more than words. BBC Sport
Carlton Cole, who played for Chelsea and West Ham and earned seven England caps, posted a video defending the podcast comments as "banter" and insisting he loved Hull City. His co-host's view was blunter: Joe Cole simply does not fancy their chances. BBC Sport
Hull's manager, Sergej Jakirovic, addressed the criticism on Thursday and chose to frame it as fuel rather than an insult. He called it a great motivation to prove the pundits wrong and pointed out that his team had nothing to lose — a line that captures the position of every club arriving in the Premier League from the Championship, where the financial gap between the two divisions is vast and survival is never guaranteed.
The timing is sharp. Hull were scheduled to open their 2025-26 campaign at home to Manchester United on Saturday, a fixture that will immediately tell them how far £70m of new players goes against the established order. Win, lose, or draw, the cameras will be there — and so, no doubt, will the podcasters.
What makes this spat resonate beyond Hull is the familiar tension it taps into. Promoted clubs are written off every August, sometimes rightly, often enough wrongly to make the doubt feel premature. Hull's story — nearly relegated one year, promoted the next, now bracing for the Premier League's relentless scrutiny — is exactly the kind of arc that makes the opening weeks of a new season worth following. The Coles have given the plot an early villain. Jakirovic and his players now have 38 games to write the ending.
