Major William Sudell (1850–1911) was an English association football player and administrator, who was the first chairman of Preston North End.

To aid the performances of his team, Sudell recruited several Scottish players, giving them nominal jobs in the cotton mill he managed.

After a dispute arising from payments to players resulted in Preston's withdrawal from the 1884 FA Cup, Sudell became an outspoken proponent of professionalism.

[1] During this period the club were recruiting many young sportsmen from the area to play new sports, in order to relieve financial pressures.

The protest gathered momentum, to the point where more than 30 clubs, predominantly from the north, announced that they would set up a rival British Football Association if the FA did not permit professionalism.

[8] He argued passionately for the acceptance of professionalism, but met opposition from southern-based amateur clubs, who viewed sport solely as a pastime.

Backed by figures such as the more moderate but influential William McGregor of Aston Villa, the advocates of professionalism won the day and secured its acceptance.

[11] Plans to create the competition had been ongoing for a period of months without Preston's involvement, but as the most skilful team McGregor was keen to interest them.

[12] Once involved, Sudell was eager for the embryonic League to assert primacy in relation to other competitions, joining with J. J. Bentley to propose that "The clubs forming the League shall support each other and bind themselves to carry out in the strictest sense the arrangements for matches between them, and not allow them to be cancelled on account of any cup competition or other matches".

[13] Sudell was more financially minded than the egalitarian McGregor, and urged the League to dispense with proposals for equal sharing of gate money and residential requirements for players.

The team, nicknamed the "Invincibles", contained ten Scots, tempted south by the money on offer as professionalism was still banned in Scotland.

[18] He was promoted captain on 23 June 1886,[19] and was granted the honorary rank of major on 19 October 1889; the unit had now become part of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.

[22] After his time as Preston chairman, in 1895, Sudell was convicted of embezzling thousands of pounds from the cotton mill at which he worked, in order to fund players' wages and expenses, though he did not gain personally.