Diane Rosemin-Culligan, the former chair of London City Lionesses, has been ordered to sell her £7 million Primrose Hill mansion after the Court of Appeal ruled on how she and her Bitcoin millionaire ex-husband, Anthony Culligan, must divide their £27 million fortune.
The former boss of Women’s Championship side London City Lionesses is being forced to sell her London mansion in order to settle a divorce bill with her Bitcoin millionaire ex-husband, following a ruling by Court of Appeal judges. Diane Rosemin-Culligan, 65, and financier Anthony Culligan built their fortune largely through a Bitcoin investment that turned £10,000 into £20 million over five years. The couple’s nine-bedroom Primrose Hill home, which Ms Rosemin-Culligan was awarded in an earlier divorce ruling, must now be sold, with the proceeds split between the pair under the Court of Appeal’s revised order.
How the couple built their fortune
Ms Rosemin-Culligan and Mr Culligan met in 1982, began living together in 1985, and married in 1992 while living in Japan, going on to have three children. Lord Justice Moylan, presiding over the appeal, said the couple’s wealth was accumulated during their roughly 40-year marriage. A “significant source” of that wealth came from a Bitcoin investment Mr Culligan made in 2012, buying £10,000 worth of the cryptocurrency, which grew in value to £20 million by 2017.
That fortune was used to fund the couple’s businesses and living expenses, a £2.1 million renovation of their Primrose Hill home, and the purchase of a property for Mr Culligan in the United States. The family’s wealth also derived from a payout Mr Culligan received following a business dispute, which was invested in a buy-to-let property portfolio.
The breakdown of the marriage
The couple separated in acrimonious circumstances in 2020, though they dispute exactly when their relationship ended, with Mr Culligan citing September 2020 and Ms Rosemin-Culligan citing April 2022. Mr Culligan, whose firm SETL had sponsored London City Lionesses, blamed tensions surrounding the costly house renovation and what he described as his wife’s “overbearing” and “irrational” behaviour, claiming she had twice physically restrained him from leaving during arguments. Ms Rosemin-Culligan, in turn, blamed her ex-husband for walking out of the marriage “without explanation,” which she said left her needing counselling.
Rosemin-Culligan’s football career
During the marriage, Ms Rosemin-Culligan played a key role in separating the Millwall women’s football team from the men’s club, rebranding the side as London City Lionesses and appointing herself chair. In 2019, the couple established a company, with Ms Rosemin-Culligan as sole shareholder, to purchase the Lionesses, with Mr Culligan becoming a director. The club was later sold in 2023 to a US businesswoman after players urged Ms Rosemin-Culligan to secure new investment or sell the team, with Ms Rosemin-Culligan continuing on as a £750,000-a-year consultant for four years.
The original divorce settlement
In March 2025, a court ordered the couple to divide their joint £27 million net worth equally, with Ms Rosemin-Culligan awarded the Primrose Hill home while Mr Culligan received a larger proportion of the value tied up in shares in his company, Colendi Holdings Limited. The original judge, Mr Justice MacDonald, had justified this arrangement by ruling that Mr Culligan should bear greater investment risk, having failed to inform his then-wife of the sale of SETL Limited, in which he held a 46 per cent stake representing roughly half the couple’s joint assets.
The Court of Appeal’s ruling
That decision was overturned on Friday by the Court of Appeal, with Lord Justice Moylan, sitting alongside Lord Justice Coulson and Lord Justice Arnold, ruling that there had been no legal basis for reducing Mr Culligan’s share of the Colendi shares on account of the lack of consultation over the SETL sale. The judges found that SETL’s financial position meant a sale would likely have taken place regardless, making the absence of consultation irrelevant to how the assets should be divided. Lord Justice Moylan said the sale “would have taken place in any event” because SETL was running out of money.
The court concluded that the original order had placed an unfairly disproportionate investment risk on Mr Culligan by awarding him a larger share of the unlisted Colendi shares. The judgment noted that courts will generally avoid allocating significantly more investment risk to one spouse than the other without clear legal justification.
Crucially, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the overall 50/50 division of the couple’s total wealth remains unchanged; the appeal concerned only how specific assets were allocated, not the total value each party is entitled to receive. To rebalance the settlement, the judges ordered that the value of the Colendi shares be split equally between the couple, offset by Ms Rosemin-Culligan selling the Primrose Hill house and paying 40.4 per cent of the net proceeds to her ex-husband. Under the revised order, Ms Rosemin-Culligan will continue to own the property until it is sold.
The ruling brings to a close a high-profile financial remedy appeal, regarded as one of the UK’s most significant divorce disputes linked to cryptocurrency wealth.
