The circumstances surrounding Leeds United’s period in administration continue to raise questions four years later. Attention on Ken Bates’ claim not to know the identities of the ultimate owners of Leeds United reached such an intensity in May 2011 that Bates bought the club himself in order to “deliver the transparency sought”; but the manner in which Bates retained control of Leeds after putting the club into administration in summer 2007 remains controversial. A BBC documentary to be shown in Yorkshire tonight, Who Owns Leeds United?, attempts once again to unravel this situation and establish just what went on as Leeds plunged into League One and almost out of business.
As part of their investigation, the BBC obtained copies of correspondence between the club and Leeds City Council through a Freedom of Information request that, while it does not form a central part of the programme, should be of interest to Leeds fans. The BBC have passed these letters and emails to The Square Ball so that we can present them to you.
The letters between Shaun Harvey and senior Council officers reveal that in March and April 2007 an ‘investment group’ was willing to invest £10m in Leeds United, a sum which would have secured LUFC as a going concern through the 2007/08 season, meaning administration and the subsequent twenty-five point penalty would have been avoided; but according to Harvey, this investment was dependent on the following:
- on the Council loaning LUFC £18m-£25m at a 4% rate of interest to exercise the buy-back of Elland Road from Teak Commercial;
- on the Council giving informal planning approval to the construction of “additional facilities that will secure further income streams” on Stadium land;
- and on the Council granting LUFC first option to purchase the Council’s land holdings around Elland Road, land which at that point was slated for construction of the city’s new arena.
Harvey on one hand was presenting Leeds United’s situation as dire, talking of “regret … when the club is no more,” and claiming the club was likely to go out of business without Council help. On the other hand the help requested would have put Leeds United’s owners in an extraordinarily strong position to benefit from the redevelopment of the greater Elland Road area, with the Stadium bought back for LUFC from Teak using a publicly funded loan at a very low interest rate, first option to buy an area of land which was a preferred option for a lucrative leisure development, and implied approval for a scheme to expand commercial facilities at the Stadium.
In response, Leeds City Council agreed informally to explore buying Elland Road itself and leasing it to LUFC, but raised concerns over the identities of the controlling interests in Forward Sports Fund, Teak Commercial, and the anonymous £10m investment group. Harvey’s response to this was lukewarm, and there appears to have been no more communication between LUFC and the Council until Ken Bates’ comments in the press on May 1st that: “…we will remember those people [at Leeds City Council] who didn’t support us. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.” After seeing the article, Council Officer Paul Brook wrote to Shaun Harvey to say, “In the light of the reported comments we will all now be looking over our shoulders and avoiding dark alleys.”
For Leeds fans, the correspondence raises yet further questions about the necessity of the administration process, the identities of the respective owners of Leeds United and Elland Road, and the recurring theme of property development:
- Why was Shaun Harvey warning the Council on 27th March that the club could soon be “no more,” and may never “become a major football club again”; whereas Ken Bates publicly claimed on 1st May that he was aiming to “make sure that next season we’re profitable”?
- Who were the anonymous £10m investment group?
- With £10m investment available, why couldn’t LUFC raise the additional £4m to buy-back Elland Road itself, so adding “…the positive effect of a net introduction of [up to] £37.7m into our balance sheet,” making it “far easier to attract equity investment to the club,” to quote Shaun Harvey?
- Why was the £10m available to save Leeds United conditional on access to additional property and planning permission?
- If an investor was available with £10m when Leeds United were at their lowest point and about to go out of business, why has the comparatively ruder health of LUFC in recent seasons not attracted any further offers of investment?
- Given that the £10m investment was presumably withdrawn – as the subsequent administration suggests – how is it explained that the club went ahead in any case with two of the three aims of this ‘investment group’ – building “additional facilities” on Elland Road, and asking the Council again for a loan to buy-back Thorp Arch?
- With the club on the brink of going out of business, how did Harvey propose to pay to exercise a ‘first option’ to buy the adjacent Council land?
- Why was Harvey’s proposal so unrealistic? The request for a £20m-£25m loan secured on a Stadium valued by the Council at under £6m, at an interest rate of 4%, was quickly dismissed by the Council as impossible. Was this a competent proposal, and were Bates’ threats of revenge in the press a competent way to negotiate, when the future of the football club was hanging in the balance?
- Why, when Leeds United were hurtling towards League One and the club was on the verge of closure, does Harvey mention football and the supporters just once in passing?
The Square Ball have uploaded the letters in full to the document sharing website Scribd: click here to read them for yourself. We have also summarised the contents to highlight the main points below.
The correspondence covers the period from 7th March 2007 until 1st May 2007; Leeds entered administration on the 4th May. The letters are between Leeds United Chief Executive Shaun Harvey and several senior Leeds City Council officers, who are responding to Harvey’s proposal that the Council fund a repurchase of Elland Road and Thorp Arch on the club’s behalf. Harvey is adamant that this step is necessary if LUFC are to attract investment, and even to continue as a football club:
As I stated at the meeting, our first desire would be for Leeds United AFC Ltd to own Elland Road (and Thorp Arch) with the benefit of a mortgage provided by the Council utilising your Prudential borrowing scheme. [LUFC Chief Executive Shaun Harvey to LCC Chief Asset Management Officer Paul Brook, 11th April]
In simple terms … depending on whether both or only one property was repurchased, would have a positive effect [on LUFC’s balance sheet] of up to £37.7m turning it from a negative position to a positive one. The knock on effect of a positive balance sheet is that I believe it would be far easier to attract equity investment to the club than it is at the moment. [Harvey to Brook, 11th April]
We have received an offer from Teak Commercial Ltd … they would grant us an extended lease on the stadium with a 12 month rent holiday if we surrender the buy-back option … if we were to accept their offer I do not believe the club would ever be in a position to become a major football club again. The rent saving would represent about 15% of the capital investment the club requires in the period to the 30th June 2008 and make the prospect of further investment into the club, in my opinion impossible. [Harvey to Brook, 27th March]
We need to … find solutions not problems otherwise we may all regret the half empty rather than half full approach when the club is no more. [Harvey to Brook, 27th March]
But while it outlines an impending ‘doomsday’ for LUFC, Harvey’s letter of 27th March 2007 also reveals that:
I have one particular investment group who have confirmed that they have £10.0m (the working capital required up to 30th June 2008) immediately available to commit… [Harvey to Brook, 27th March]
This £10m would make administration unnecessary and ensure the club’s survival through the 2007/08 season. However, the investment is subject to three conditions, not placed upon the club, but placed upon the Council:
[The group] have made the investment of that cash conditional upon the following:-
1. Confirmation from your planning department that you would be happy to see Elland Road developed to create additional facilities that will secure further income streams for the club…
2. Confirmation that Leeds United would be given first option to acquire the land adjacent to Elland Road owned by the Council at a negotiated price (market value) or the option to match any offer for the land made by a third party. It would be the clubs intention to work closely with the council to ensure that the development that takes place was one that suited all parties….
3. Confirmation that you will continue to work with the club to establish a way so that we can utilise your ability to borrow money so that we can repurchase Elland Road and Thorp Arch back from the current owners. [Harvey to Brook, 27th March]
What is most striking about the conditions of the £10m investment is that they are not dependent in any way upon Leeds United Football Club; they all hinge on securing the land at and around Elland Road for the benefit of the ‘investment group’ and the owners of LUFC.
It is useful to put these requests into context:
- Condition one predates any planning applications for the Pavilion or East Stand redevelopments. The investment group in question appears to be requesting tacit planning approval for similar schemes in advance of investing in the club.
- At the time of this letter, Elland Road was a favoured option for the Leeds Arena that is now in construction on Claypit Lane. One option in the March 2007 Council Masterplan for the Elland Road area shows an arena built on the Council’s Fullerton Car Park land, and this site was the fall-back option even after the Council opted for Claypit Lane in October 2008. Acceptance of this condition by the Council would have given LUFC first option to buy and redevelop this land themselves.
- LUFC did in fact go on to attempt to utilise Council funds to repurchase Thorp Arch in late 2009.
From their part of the correspondence, Leeds City Council appear to have been willing to work with Harvey on his proposals, but are mindful of their responsibilities as a local authority:
As promised, senior colleagues and I have looked carefully at the document, recognising fully the important role that LUFC plays in the City and recognising the implications for the redevelopment/regeneration of the area, of the Elland Road Stadium possibly ceasing to be used as a venue for the playing of top-flight soccer. Balanced against those considerations, however, have been our responsibilites with respect to the appropriate use of public funds. [Council Chief Executive Paul Rogerson to Shaun Harvey, 7th March]
…we do, of course, continue to think about how we might be able to assist the Club whilst minimising the risk to Council Taxpayers’ funds. In this context the comments below are in response to your specific questions and are made on a without prejudice basis. They should not be taken to mean that such a proposal is actually on the table. [Council Chief Asset Manager Paul Brook to Shaun Harvey, 9th March 2007]
From the Club’s perspective we fully appreciate your desire to maintain it as a going concern and to secure its long term interest and future prospects as a private entity. However, from the Council’s perspective, our interests are to ensure that ER is secured in the long term for the benefit of football in the city. I do not see that these objectives are mutually exclusive. [Paul Brook to Shaun Harvey, 5th April 2007]
Following discussions between senior officers and Councillors … Councillor Carter [the then lead member of the Council] was anxious that the Club should be made aware that there is no lack of goodwill on the Council’s part, and that we remain keen to explore ways in which we might assist the Club. [Paul Brook to Shaun Harvey, 13th April]
Set against this willingness to help, however, are the practical implications of Harvey’s proposals. Harvey’s loan request is for circa £18m – £25m, the majority of this secured against Elland Road stadium; however, the Council has to value the Stadium on the basis that it would only revert to them should the football club cease operations, and without Leeds United Elland Road is valued only in the region of £3m – £6m:
Valuation would therefore most likely be on an alternative use type basis. Net of demolition costs we would no doubt be looking at under £5m. Clearly there would never be sufficient security in the asset alone and personal guarantees from Club directors/officials and/or sympathetic business people would be required … Clearly with a mortgage of £18.8m (or £25m as you have requested) the lion’s share of any security would fall to be provided by the guarantors. [Brook to Harvey, 9th March]
The value of Elland Road as security is also reduced by the Council’s statutory powers to purchase it to secure the future of the area Masterplan:
…given the Council’s statutory powers to acquire the Stadium, if such action were considered to be necessary or desirable to ensure the proper development of the Elland Road area, we believe that the Council’s auditors would be likely to question very closely any decision on our part not to act in pursuance of these powers but to facilitate, instead, the acquisition of the Stadium by a third party at a price appearing to be considerably in excess of the open-market value of the site. [Rogerson to Harvey, 7th March]
Local Authority accounting regulations would also mean that a loan on the terms Harvey proposed would cost the Council £0.8m per year; and the rate of interest Harvey proposed also seemed unrealistic:
The law requires that we charge to our revenue account at least 4% of our debt outstanding at the start of each year … The amount quoted of £0.8m would be the amount we would be required to charge to our accounts by increasing our debt by around £20m…
Incidentally your proposal also quotes an interest figure of 4%. At present rates we would certainly not be able to borrow money for 20 years fixed at rates this low. [LCC Director of Corporate Services Alan Gay to Harvey, 12th March]
The anonymity of Leeds United’s owners Forward Sports Fund, and of Elland Road’s owners Teak Commercial, are also a barrier to the Council’s ability to help:
Also, you will be aware that Councillor Carter has publicly stated that the Council will not deal with people who are not identified, and he restated this strongly to me, Martin Farrington, and the Chief Executive yesterday. This means that the Club does need to give serious consideration to revealing the names of those people who control the activities of FSF Trust if we are to make any progress.
With regard to Teak Commercial, I appreciate the difficulties which exist here for all of us, but as I pointed out yesterday, the Council will take a view on the level of secrecy surrounding any proposed transactions and this will ultimately dictate whether the Council is willing to be a party to such transactions. The local authority would have to meet its full obligations under any money laundering regulations and this may be a time factor outside of the Council’s control. [Brook to Harvey, 5th April]
Despite these difficulties, the Council do make an informal proposal to Harvey of a potential way forward. The request for a first option to buy Council land is apparently dismissed, but Brook asked Harvey whether the following might be acceptable:
[Harvey agreed to] Seek advice as to whether a 125 year lease of the Stadium (or similar) from the Council would carry sufficient balance sheet value to give the Club the increase in net worth which it desires … annual rent of circa £1.25m, with no upward reviews in the first 25 years … Rent payable by 12 monthly instalments to keep individual payments manageable and also to highlight early any repayment problems … Landlord consent for the redevelopment of the Stadium not to be unreasonably withheld so long as the proposals are within the context of the adopted master plan (and subject to its primary use being for the staging of football matches). Any proposals would, of course, notwithstanding the status of the master plan, be subject to planning. [Brook to Harvey, 5th April]
Harvey seemed doubtful about this proposal, however. He stated that he was reluctant to reveal the owners of FSF, “in view of the way previous information has ended up in media,” but offers:
To alleviate the concern over Forward Sports Fund why don’t we create a mechanism whereby the stadium is purchased by a subsidiary of Leeds United AFC Ltd (linked to our share in the Football League Ltd) over which the council could have ‘a golden share’ so it could prohibit the company from taking any action that prejudices the stadium being used for the long term benefit of football in the city. [Harvey to Brook, 11th April]
With regards to the Stadium ownership, the best Harvey can offer is a letter from LUFC Director Mark Taylor stating that no LUFC Directors have an interest in Teak:
Having spoken with Jacob Adler, with whom the previous Board arranged to sell the stadium and Thorp Arch, he said he would do what he could to confirm that none of the current Board of Leeds United AFC or specifically my Chairman, Ken Bates, had any beneficial interest in that Company. Teak Commercial Ltd have now appointed Hammonds (Birmingham Office) to act on their behalf but upon enquiry failed to confirm or deny who anybody was connected with Teak Commercial Ltd. I do, however, enclose for your attention a letter from the club’s solicitor, Mark Taylor who is also a Director of Leeds United AFC giving you the clarification that nobody connected with the club has an interest in Teak Commercial Ltd. I would be obliged if you can confirm that you are now satisfied with this position. [Harvey to Brook, 27th March]
And Harvey responds specifically to the Council’s offer to buy Elland Road and lease it to LUFC:
I have asked the relevant questions of our advisors to see if this approach would benefit our balance sheet and will revert to you once I have had their response but as you have gathered this would be my least favoured option as I don’t think it will achieve ultimately what I need it to. [Harvey to Brook, 11th April]
This informal offer, and a statement of willingness to meet with the club’s guarantors and the potential £10m investor, was reiterated on 13th April 2007. The lines of communication appear to have gone quiet until 1st May 2007, when Paul Brook was moved to contact Shaun Harvey:
Dear Shaun.
Just a quick word to say how disappointed I am about your Chairman’s latest reported comments about the Council to the media. [Brook to Harvey, 1st May]
The report in question was headlined ‘Chairman Ken attacks ‘media vultures’’, and concluded:
Bates was also highly critical of regional development agency Yorkshire Forward and Leeds City Council, to whom he recently turned for help in a bid to buy back the Elland Road Stadium and Thorp Arch training ground.
Bates added: “We’re disappointed with the lack of support from Yorkshire Forward and from Leeds City Council frankly.
”But we’ll get there and when we’re back where we belong we will remember those people who didn’t support us.
”Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”
Brook wrote to Harvey:
When recently asked by the Club for a letter of comfort the Council acted quickly to get something to you within 24 hours, and on the issue of repurchase of the stadium we made some proposals to which the Club have not yet fully responded. I therefore feel that the reported comments do not reflect the concern shown by the Council about the Club’s plight. As you know, we will continue to explore ways in which we can help, but any assistance offered will be about preserving top class football in the City rather than being for the benefit of the shareholders.
In the light of the reported comments we will all now be looking over our shoulders and avoiding dark alleys. [Brook to Harvey, 1st May]
We have no record of a response from Shaun Harvey, suggesting that discussions between LUFC and LCC ended with this letter on 1st May. Leeds United entered administration on 4th May 2007.
If there is the slightest proof that either Bates or Harvey have knowingly broken the law they should both do time in prison. My only fear is that the only people to be punished out of all of this is us long suffering Leeds United fans (MORONS).
So can we deduce from this that the extra 10million offered was from a group very close to Bates[!] and his clique? Who wanted to blackmail the council into handing over money for land and facilities at a totally undervalued rate, and when the council wouldnt play ball Bate’s clique effectively relegated us into league 1? It feels as though KB has played russian roulette with the club and its future, all to asset strip the club and its future.
Well well well – Looking forward to this programme tonight and as Mark says if its true both of them should be thrown in jail and the key thrown away !!
As he says they played Russian roulette with OUR club and to me that is unforgiveable . I stand by my cry of ” Bates out” and sooner the better
BATES & HARVEY BOTH PEE IN THE SAME POT, IT’S ABOUT TIME SOMEONE FLUSHED THEM DOWN THE POT. LETS HOPE WE NOW GET SOME TRUTHFULL ANSWER’S, BUT I DOUBT WE WILL FROM BATES & CO…. GET THE CHELSEA OLUTTA OUR CLUB ONVE N FOR ALL……..
What law was broken in all this. These types of discussions will go on at all business up and down the country about investment. The problem is all these stories points are a gun with no bullets. Wouldn’t you as an investor of £10m want the club to have the club look into owning the ground. Without this the club is just a name with no assets (well apart from players).
The club was already relegated when we went into administration. The league were unhappy Bates found a loophole in there 10 point penalty so were itching to find a way to pass on another type of punishment and this is why they actually voted against the CVA. So a league set up to help it’s members voted against one!!!!
As for asking the council for help. Well if we had burnt our bridges why why have the agreed to £500k expenditure to move lowfields road access. They want to redevelop the area as much as the club. They have even agreed to sell land to the club to assist.
you wont rest until you stir this hornets nest and it stings the true fans on your revenge mission let bates sell it to some dodgy asian types who will f@@k us over ,better the devil you know i say.
You ask what real harm has been done? Maybe you should imagine being a small business owed by KB’s previous incarnation at Elland Rd? How would you like to get 8p in every pound they were owed?
Mark, look outside your hate Bates view. He’s running the club like a business. Yes I would love more investment on the pitch and cheaper tickets but this isn’t going to happen at present.
The club should have been put into administration by the Yorkshire Consortium. It was already a deadman walking at this stage due to the amount of debt and not being in the premiership. What they did was actually sell the only assets,ie ER & TA, so making the position we have now. What do you think the creditors would have got with a club with assets??
sadly shaun you are wasting your time and effort ,the movement to get bates out of lufc is only going to get bigger and rightly so ,now these communications are not breaking any laws as you suggest .
however no one and i mean no one believes that bates and harvey did not know who owned leeds united at the time of administration and afterwards there at the very least had to be a go between ,fsf were one minute owned by bates then he was in courts saying he didn’t ,now i would remember if i did or didn’t own a football club .
now this is where the law has been broken he has lied under the terms of administration .
do not take it as granted that bates is above lying to the league because quite frankly they are as inept and not fit for purpose as bates
Shaun, wake up mate. The above series of emails show a CEO intent on sucking every possible penny from the club and anyone else daft enough to pour money in, whilst LCC are trying desperately to keep football in Leeds. It’s ridiculous that LCC are more concerned with football than Leeds United are – and that’s been the problem for far too long now.
is your surname harvey,shaun?
bates and harvey should both be investigated by the relevant authorities starting with tax .then the courts ,then the football league and fa ..
ken bates has a history of ruining companies it is there for all to see there is a very public list ,how on earth he is a fit and proper person he is avoiding tax ,he lies about all sorts (allegedly) in court under oath then there is ownership .what does it matter who owns the club if he does he does .do we know who owns the other 20odd%..
there are dark days ahead
In the land of the nine bob note, the man in Colonel Sanders suit is apparently king. The more the can opens the more worms stare you in the face.
Nobody will care if we get promoted this season, however if we do not get promoted and we have a summer transfer like the one just passed i think everybody will want bates out.(already attendance at ER is below the average of last year, but that can all change if we climb that table and thats what Bates is literally banking on.)
Shaun, we have had a succession of incompetent, bent, lying, asset-stripping owners. I dont think its enough to say this one is better or worse – this is the current one, and if fans can help ‘move him along’ then id welcome that.
The man is destroying our football club from within. He nearly managed it with Chelsea. It’s clear as day. How can people defend that?
This article appears to be the result of many hours of research, far beyond the making available of correspondence by the BBC, and it is unusually erudite with a highly professional appearance. It does NOT look like the work of a blogger or fan. Who did all this research, provided the information and structured and wrote this long piece? I wonder what their agenda and vested interests were.
Clearly the BBC was a primary source, or the only one. Did it, or someone directly or indirectly associated with it, also write some, most or all of the article? The BBC is part of an Establishment cabal that dislikes Leeds and Leeds Utd and is conducting a witch hunt or vendetta, and anything it says must be considered likely to be very selective in presenting one side of any story. The BBC often seems not to seek to report the news, but to make, influence or even be it.
The article seems to describe normal, proper and legal business negotiation. The article implies wrongdoing but doesn’t seem to say what it is. Would the author like to go further and tell us just what has been done that was illegal, improper or clearly not in the interests of Leeds Utd?
The £10M would have bought a temporary reprieve but would not have prevented relegation or enabled any solution of the club’s chronic problems. The money would almost certainly all have immediately been given to preferential creditors such as HMRC, but would still have had to be repaid – an investment in the club is just a loan to it, of course, not a gift. So it would have left the club with a marginally different set of creditors but NO better off and with the same problems of unsupportable debt (bankruptcy, in other words) a year or so later. It would not, therefore, have been anywhere near as good for the club as what has happened instead.
If Bates and colleagues have done anything illegal it is the Law that must deal with them, but trial and judgement by TV, blog, innuendo, smear and stirring up fans’ resentment are profoundly improper, ugly and worrying.
If Bates and colleagues have damaged the interests of Leeds Utd more than they have served them they deserve the disapproval of fans and ousting from the club. This article does not show such net damage to be the case, however.
Yesterday’s posting about falling attendances was an interesting critique of Bates’ present approach that I agree with a lot of. This today looks very much like the work or influence of a witch hunting vendetta outside the club, city and fanbase that seeks to do damage and manipulate fans’ sentiments for their own reasons or interests.
Astonishing response.
You complain because the article is well written in coherent, correct English. What would your response have been to something badly written with mistakes on every line?
There is nothing about this that is normal business negotiation. The club (owners unknown) wanted a loan from a public body to buy the ground from unknown owners and grant the club (owners unknown) preferential status on any future development. The council had no choice but to turn them down on any number of grounds, not least money laundering.
This is not smear and innuendo, it is fact, all now in the public domain.
If it is untrue, then Bates knows the route to take.
Sue for libel. I’m not expecting that to happen, though.
This reply is unusually erudite with a highly professional appearance. It does NOT look like the work of a troll. Who did all this sophisticated use of language and grammar and sh!t? I wonder what their agenda and vested interests were?
More evidence, if any were needed, that Bates and Harvey were trying to secure club and, more importantly, the ground at minimal personal cost. Again, it seems they were trying to use an anonymous investment trust, no doubt under Bates’ direction, to provide the muscle for another stab at football empire building.
But I’m not sure that the failure of this (improbable) £10m investment plan, or even LCC’s informal counter-offer, is something to be mourned; we would have still been relegated to League One, Bates and Harvey would have remained at the club, and Leeds would still be facing a sizable debt. Would this plan merely have kicked administration further down the road?
For the Bates outers, it’s the CVA/KPMG sale – a more convoluted means of achieving the same ends – that remains the main issue, both in terms of the potential illegality of Bates’ actions and the window they provided for removing him. This just underlines that the only foreign investment Ken Bates is interested in comes in the form of offshore trusts only he’s ever heard of.
I think the most telling conversation was the one about the 125 year lease. I think the Council offered that as a test to find out whether Bates/Harvey had the club’s (football) interests at heart. They didn’t. Here’s why –
Any ‘reasonable’ club in good health that gets an offer from the council of a 125 year stadium lease with annual rent of £1.25m, would bite the Council’s hands off. It’s an incredible offer.
Whether the Council really could offer that or whether it was a case of testing the water to find out Harvey’s real intentions, I don’t know. But I’d guess the latter.
If you’re interested in saving the club, then who in their right mind would have turned down the Council’s offer??
The Council offer to buy the ground from Teak, then GIVE it to the club’s balance sheet, offer a FIXED rate of £1.25m for 25 years, and you only have to pay monthly.
What’s £1.25m to a football club – even now that’s only the equivalent of 2 players on £12k a week. That deal was on the table in 2007 and fixed at £1.25m a year for 25 years. In 2032 (25 years on from 2007), £1.25m will be peanuts.
@LeedsForLife The BBC have a witchhunt against LUFC? Come on, for Christ sake. That’s nearly as ridiculous a conspiracy theory as the idiots who moan about the lack of coverage we get on the FL Show – not paying any consideration to the fact that they have 72 teams to cover! That’ll be Bates’ go-to excuse too – everyone hates us and we don’t care. Let’s ignore the black and white evidence and continue to perpetuate such myths.
@Colin Spot on mate. It’s an extremely good deal for both sides, especially when you consider what we’re now paying!
I would laugh my cock off if in the final credits of tonight’s BBC programme it says:
BBC, 2011 AD
All of this has to be seen against the team performance as well. There is a bigger picture! When the original proposals were made LUFC were in danger of staying up in the Championship – many good players could have done better – that’s a fact. At there time there were echoes of the relegation year from the Premiership in terms of team effort. I’m not defending the management but it is easy to have a go at Bates and Harvey – they are still here! Then there’s the coaching staff etc. etc.
leedsforlife has this summed up perfectly
David Conn has it in for Bates..end of
BBC are stirring this up to damage Leeds and there are no end of morons queuing up to peddle this propoganda
If you take a look at David Conn’s “Inside Sport” blog you will see he has written on a broad range of clubs and subjects. We are by no means the only focus of his attention, it’s just that as Leeds fans we notice it a lot more. A bit like the way everyone thinks their route to work is worse than everyone else’s in terms of roadworks etc.
Ask yourself, realistically, why a huge broadcasting organisation like the BBC would have it in for a football club? It doesn’t make sense on any level.
This latest round of information comes from direct messages between the council and Shaun Harvey. If it reflects badly on the club then there is nobody to blame but the management of the club.
I know for a fact a number of high net worths were prepared to offer the club a advantageous deal to re buy TA…. Deal was rejected as it was a done deal with the council. Leading me to believe Harvey & Bates are either incompetent or corrupt.
SHAUN… You say bates is running the club like a business… Yes …. Our last published accounts reveal turnover just short of £30m of which in excess of £20m comes from gate receipts’ sponsorship and tv .. Wages are just short of £8m… A £22m differential…. Where does that money go… Do the maths yourself it just doesn’t add up. The sooner this parasite is run out of Leeds the better.
TSS: Personally I don’t give a damn about how Bates makes his case, or about TV coverage. I don’t know whether he is guilty of malpractice; and neither do you. I can see that whatever he did put the club in a far better position than it was in when he took over; but you can’t or won’t. I don’t give a damn whether he thereby made a profit; it’s how business works, and anyone who has a problem with that is naive. I think that some of Bates’ approach is very flawed and damaging; and I also think the moaning is very flawed and damaging.
The evidence of BBC bias is all over the Internet. If you were able to remove your blinkers of loathing for a few minutes you could easily see that for yourself. Just because you use a trite phrase like ‘conspiracy theory’ doesn’t mean the media is not used by vested interests in the Establishment to manipulate the population. You’re the one who likes to speak of progaganda; you should know that, shouldn’t you? There is none more blind than a man who refuses to look, and blind hatred is not conducive to objective judgement.
Did you nearly accuse me of idiocy, TSS? Well, I guess that’s no worse than me telling you I think your refusal or inability to see past hatred and recognise the real improvements in the welfare of the club is silly, as I recently did. Perhaps we might both be politer to each other.
But that has nothing to do with the fact that the £10M would only have postponed administration, not prevented it, and would have delayed or even prevented the radical improvements that have freed the club from the ruinous burdens imposed on it by previous management.
What really does annoy me is all the prattling about who owns Leeds United, or profits by that. I don’t give a damn. I neither knew nor cared in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or 00s and I don’t know or care now. I only care that Leeds United plays good football and does well. And it annoys me intensely that people moaning about irrelevances that are none of their business impedes or prevents that. Which it damned well does.
You say there is no proof of Ken’s wrongdoing, but in the next paragraph give evidence of the BBC’s bias by saying there is “evidence all over the net”. On the internet you will also find evidence that the US government blew up the twin towers and that Princess Diana was murdered by the Royal Family. The truth, as individuals see it, is only ever what they are personally willing to believe. Whether this be in the intrinsic failings of Ken Bates, the bias of the BBC or the presence of God.
I’m interested in the idea that the 10m would only have postponed admin. Are you in that case saying that the attempt to get more money from the council would effectively have been chucking away tax payers’ money as we inevitably fell into admin at a later date. If it was always inevitable, why was it not done earlier?
As for the “prattling on” about profits and ownership that distracts from events on the field, how do you not see that the two are inextricably linked? As you say, you didn’t care who owned us in the 90s or 00s and nor did anyone else. That is how, as Ken loves to remind us, Ridsdale was able to ruin us during that period.
Michael: I did NOT say anything about proof of Bates’ wrongdoing, except that neither I nor TSS knows whether he is guilty of anything or not.
Yes, truth is not absolute and nothing can be proven absolutely. Evidence is either convincing or it isn’t, and that will depend to some extent on the viewpoint and prejudice of the viewer and judge. However, not all evidence is equally unconvincing or insubstantial, and there is a great difference between uninformed or loosely informed and heavily prejudiced opinion and clear examples of contradictions or discrepancies between reports and what is reported, supported by a growing rationale presenting a consistency of bias. There’s a bit of the former about Bates, and a lot of the latter about the BBC. The evidence against the BBC is far more convincing than against Bates.
Regarding the £10M, may I first refer you to my earlier posting of 1:14? Then here’s how I see it….
I hadn’t actually said anything about it being a waste of taxpayer’s money, but I suppose I might mean that. Was the ‘investment’ actually coming from taxpayer’s money as a gift? If so, that would have been a scandalous waste, because, yes, administration (or worse) was inevitable (see below). If not, then the investor (council or other, which is what I understand) would have expected to get the money back later plus profit (that being the whole purpose of an investment), so the club would still have been as much or even more in debt, with administration postponed but not prevented.
Administration was utterly inevitable unless either someone could have been found to inject many millions into a basket case or the club was terminated.
When a business is profoundly in debt, it hasn’t many ways forward:
A. It can be taken over by someone willing to clear or maintain its debts and restructure it more profitably.
B. It can start to operate far more profitably and trade its way out of debt.
C. It can declare itself bankrupt and cease trading.
D. It can be forced into bankruptcy by its major creditors and cease trading.
E. It can enter into a Voluntary Arrangement that allows it to pay a proportion of its debts to creditors – most of whom may thereby be better off since usually only the preferential creditors would benefit by bankruptcy – and carry on trading with much less or no debt.
A was not possible. It was attempted, but what competent businessman would put in the incredibly huge amount to cover the debt and rebuild the squad, with only a tenuous prospect of return within several years if ever?
B is rarely realistic and certainly wasn’t for a football club whose previous managements had sold most of its playing assets and with huge interest and repayment costs.
C doesn’t happen for football clubs because there’s strong desire that they don’t cease to exist.
D was very impending, not least because the authorities (government of the time and HMCE mainly) were very willing to make an example of a big club, and they couldn’t have a preferable one than ‘hated’ Leeds United – think how many votes they’d have bought around the country by destroying Leeds!
E was the only alternative to D. Yes, if being shut down by the major creditors (HMCE with government backing) was to be prevented, it had to be by a VA and administration.
What we actually got was a hybrid. We got some of A, an investor who wasn’t prepared to underwrite the debts, but was prepared to fight the creditors and authorities to fend off D, enforced bankruptcy and closure, so as to put E, a VA, into effect in a way that allowed the club to survive intact.
Such an investor was the only real option for the club other than its complete and permanent closure, and the only such one who turned up was only prepared to buy into such a situation if he got to keep the club and profit from having put up a big fight against some very big powerful people and organisations.
He did put up a fight against those big powerful people and organisations, he won and the club thereby continued to exist without debts, and if he fought tricky and dirty I’m happy because the people he was fighting against do that too – and they aren’t against changing the rules mid-fight. I doubt there are many people who could actually have achieved that, and I acknowledge him because I am quite sure the closure of the club was almost certain without his determination to preserve it and thereby make his profit, and I think he earned his ownership and profit.
(That doesn’t mean I think he’s got everything right since then, though. I don’t, not by a long way. It doesn’t mean I like him, either, but if he was a likeable chap I doubt he could have fought as hard, dirty and successfully as he did.)
Administration had to be done at the right time. It was necessary to give as little in the VA as possible, to keep as much to help the club rebuild and to shed as much of the debt as possible. Going into the VA too early – while still in the Championship or with a chance of staying there – would have been far more expensive for the club. It had to be left to the last minute, when survival was clearly in the balance. Bates had to be able to say ‘There’s not much to divvy out if the club’s going to survive at all, and this measly deal is the best we can offer, and if you don’t go for it the club’s got no choice but to close its doors, and most of you will get nothing.’ It had to be left so late that the only thing on offer was going to clear the debts completely, not partially. Going into it too early would have cost the club more, would have left it with more residual debt, and would have made recovery much slower or impossible.
Yes, it was tough, painful, worrying, and the brinkmanship made it seem possible the club would cease to exist. But, in reality, the club was on the brink of ceasing to exist anyway – and was doomed to that long before Bates took over – and the brinkmanship was what pulled it back from the brink so effectively that it gave it a debt-free momentum towards recovery.
Yes, there were costs because he fought dirty. The points deduction – and I did say they change the rules mid-fight, didn’t I? If he hadn’t fought dirty enough the club was a goner, and those costs were part of the price of survival. They weren’t going to make it easy or pleasant for us, were they?
Your point about the relationship between profits and ownership and what happens on the field is a good one, of course, but only partly. How the business is run – how profits are made and invested – obviously does affect success on the field. Who owns the club does not, which was my point (whether I made it clearly enough or not). It didn’t matter who Ridsdale and his collaborators were, it mattered that he ran the business of the club on the basis of a profoundly unwise business model, taking financial risks that had catastrophic consequences without appreciating how likely it was things could go wrong as they did. It didn’t matter who the directors were in the 70s, but it mattered that they appointed Clough instead of Giles. It doesn’t matter who owns Leeds United now – Bates, some other people, some trading construct – but it matters if those owners, chairman and directors make the right decisions to ensure the prosperity of the club and engender its success.
If there is impropriety, that’s for the Law to discern and prosecute – but it’s not the business of other external parties with vested interests. The BBC might argue public interest, but the only genuinely interested public are the supporters of Leeds Utd, and the BBC’s malign involvement is NOT in our interest.
Yes, it’s quite possible the club is not being run as efficiently as it could be, but it’s not being run as monumentally unwisely as Ridsdale did, or as destructively as his successors did. Above all, it’s still here.
In any case, the club’s a business. We’re its customers, and although we’re fans and supporters that doesn’t give us any share in the ownership or say in how it’s run. I shop at Tesco, but that doesn’t give me any say in who owns it or how it spends its profit. We have no right to anything except hope. What we can do, though, is support the club to the best of our ability.
For somebody, who “neither knew or cared” you dont half go on, accept that other people have opinions, that may not be the same as yours. And that your opinion is not gospel
If you have opinions you can state them if you want to. If you don’t want to read mine, don’t. If you want to point out my errors or disagree with my opinions, go ahead; I might even read what you write. Or maybe not.
LFL: A lot of this post makes perfect sense to me, however I don’t agree that the course and timing of events was the best for LUFC – I believe it was the only timing which would keep Bates and his backers in charge, but that is not the same thing. I believe what you say on the timing, in terms of it being the only way for the same person to stay in control, and from your earlier post, what the krasner board did to try to save their own finances rather than the club put us in a much worse position. I believe the club would have emerged better for it had E been what happened, without the combo and ultimately my opinion is that the administration process was illegal, and would be proved to be so without the protection offered by tax haven’s – this is something I feel all fans need to know about, we can all hope Bates sells up before it catches up with us (it won’t to him, I’m sure of that), but while he’s here then we need satisfactory and open answers to prove our paranoia is unfounded.
Its true that I didn’t not really give a thought to club ownership pre-ridsdale, but thanks to bad-PR I take a much deeper interest now (and not just because of who we have), its an important point as I want to be clear that while I do not support Bates or believe him to be good for the club, I am not simply another blinkered Bates hater. Ultimately all I want from my club off field is some transparency (or the illusion of it), to believe that the owners are working in the clubs best interests but so much of what we are fed from the club is worrying to say the least.
When pressed ahead of the 2006 play-off final, Bates stated we had budgetted to lose, and that we were in good financial health – yet a year later we suddenly had 35m debts (15m more than he inherited) despite some relatively big player sales.
The TA debacle is beyond belief, I still don’t understand how anyone buys Bates line that the council were the cause – on a deadline he’d known about since day 1 but waiting until the last months to even approach the council even though, as this article shows beyond doubt, being all too aware of what would be required (transparency on ownership) to make things happen.
Then there’s the queries over where the money is going, offensive ticket prices (paying for what exactly? A hotel noone but ken wants?), failure to do anything which might attract the next generation…. the list is endless.
Maybe this is the only way a recovery is possible, but there is so much bluster, so many insults, and so little transparency coming from within the club thats its getting harder by the day to give the current board the benefit of the doubt.
once again leedsforlife, thanks for your vision and sense of perspective, refreshingly frank and to the point.
Get behind the team, support, that is our role
If we extend this to its logical conclusion does this mean we have to support any decision made by the club?
All tickets are now £100 – Excellent.
To apply for away tickets there is a service charge of £20/ticket – Bravo.
We’ve sold the naming rights and we’re now called Leeds Red Bulls – great news!
I get behind the team every single week, but the team on the pitch and the men sat in the board room are entirely separate entities.
@madeinLeeds1960 the whole point of forums like TSB is for the fans to express their opinion about the club – positive and negative – if you’d prefer to be a sheep then point your keyboard elsewhere mate!
@LeedsForLife – A-fucking-men!
Wish I could be that succinct.
It matters to me who owns Leeds United when im paying the 5th highest ticket prices in the country to see 2nd division rubbish, and i see only £750K invested in my team in 2 years!!
Bates is a parasite who is taking as much as he can from our club without putting anything back. And before anyone starts on about how he saved us, we are in the same position as when he took over, apart from 2 administrations, 1 relegation and 40points deducted because of his underhand dealings.
Yes we are “free” of debt, but if like my uncle you are owed thousands of pounds by the club only to be offered back a pittance after administration, then it stinks to high heaven what Bates is doing.
If he did own the club from 2006, then he should be charged with purjury as he swore in court that he had no idea who did own the club, and i hope tonights programme exposes what most of us already think.
Sorry Leedsforlife, there is no conspiracy going on here, it just straight forward skull duggery by a man whos ego knows no bounds, and has morals lower than a snakes belly when it comes to making himself a quick buck.
If he has nothing to hide then i hope he comes out and offers answers after tonight, but im not holding my breath.
The home game against Coventry will be very interesting.
LeedsForLife, I was going to let your original comment stand, but as you’ve repeated the business about ‘BBC bias’ I’m moved to respond.
I did, so I’ll take this as a compliment. You can read more of my unusally erudite and professional appearing blog posts here, and also most months in the award-winning TSB magazine. The implication that because I write well I cannot be a Leeds fan and must have had help is just bizarre.
No, they did not. I wrote every word, with input from Dan, who co-edits TSB.
As explained at the very beginning of the blog post, Neil Morrow, who produced the documentary that is being shown on the BBC tonight, obtained these documents through a FOI request but decided not to use them in his programme. He passed them on to us at TSB to see if we thought them interesting. That was Neil Morrow’s/the BBC’s last involvement.
Oh how I hate that word, ‘agenda’. The ‘agenda’ was to share interesting information with Leeds United fans about their club. By reading this blog post and the letters, you now know more about the build up to the 2007 administration than you did yesterday. It’s always good to know things rather than not know them.
I wrote the introduction to highlight the aspects of the letters we at TSB feel are important, and to highlight the questions we think the letters raise that we’d like to know the answers to. I then wrote the longer summary to make the full content of the letters easy for everyone to understand. I also edited the original single pdf file (which had several pages out of sequence) to restore the original eleven communications, which we have uploaded to Scribd.com so that anyone who wishes to can read them and draw their own conclusions.
You have drawn your conclusions, and I don’t personally agree with them, but that’s life. I think – and we at TSB think – it is important for Leeds fans to have as much information as possible about their club, and apparently you don’t, but again that’s life.
My suspicion regarding erudition is nothing to do with my opinion of Leeds United fans, rather obviously. It is based on what seems to be a marked contrast between this one article and the general and near-universal standard of erudition in football blogs. Fine; I’m happy to be mistaken.
I retract any implication that the posting is predominantly the work of external vested interests, and I wholeheartedly compliment you on your erudition.
That doesn’t mean, though, that you are not supporting the BBC’s agenda – and just because you don’t like the word doesn’t mean they don’t have one. And if you think you aren’t doing so, that does not mean that you are not supporting it involuntarily. They couldn’t put this stuff into their programme, possibly because they didn’t have time but perhaps more likely becauae they know to do so would leave them open to accusations of smear that would cast (even more) doubts upon the integrity of their report. So what to do with it instead? Why, just give it to a blog that has some common interest (undermining Bates) without sharing the same purpose (undermining Leeds Utd). That way the stuff is publicised as accusation, even though there doesn’t seem to be anything more than highly tenuous implication of wrongdoing in it, but the BBC can’t be accused of deliberate smear. For heaven’s sake, just why did they give you this stuff? Not because they hoped you’d do their smearing for them, surely?
@leedsforlife – it seems to have escaped you that the thrust of this post is supported by actual documents, sourced legitimately. If it makes Leeds/Bates/Harvey look bad, it’s because of what is actually in those documents. As such, “smear” doesn’t enter into it.
It is truly amazing that after all these years, after all Leeds United has gone through since 2005, after all the Chairman’s Notes columns, after all the public negativity of the current ownership, the huge increases in Leeds United overhead expenses that many fans still do not recognize that on balance the current ownership is not good for Leeds United and its fans.
It didn’t start in 2005.
It’s truly amazing that some fans are unable to distinguish between ownership and management. It’s truly amazing that some fans seem to hate Bates more than they support Leeds Utd. It’s truly amazing some fans think they have a right to a say in the business of the club. It’s truly amazing etc etc etc.
What and who would you like instead, then?
What and who did you want in 2005? How do you think that would have worked out?
@leeds for life, we hate bates becasue we love leeds, Bates is a parasite bleeding us and the club dry!
Great article TSS … Those who are blinded by bates propaganda … Will always criticise any view that is anti bates. We recognise that like most of us who read your articles, that you have no agenda … Just a passion to see our club owned by a proprietor who has the clubs and our best interests at heart.
some of the comments on this are utterly depressing. disregarding all the inner workings of it all, Bates is pricing the average fan out of supporting their club whilst lowering the quality of the squad and building his own vanity project that the majority of us will never have any use for.
Matthew, that’s because that’s not really what the article was about.
I despise the BBC’s lack of integrity, I think the stuff about who owns the club really is prattle, and I think people fail badly in not distinguishing between those things and the practicalities of running the club. Above all, I think too many people are so blinded by longstanding dislike of Bates that they can’t engage in balanced consideration of those practicalities that really matter.
I rail against those things because I think they are ridiculous and do the club harm.
But if there are discussions to be had about those praticalities that aren’t conflated with the irrelevant issues of ownership and blind hatred of Bates, you won’t find me arguing in defence of his policies much. I’m not keen on spending sprees or letting wages get out of hand, but ticket prices, crowd sizes, difficulty in recruiting, building expensive ground developments instead of hiring players, and ownership of TA are all indications of seriously questionable judgement.
And while we have no right to a say in the running of the business, we do have a right to be interested in the value we get for our ticket money, and a right to state our opinions as fans – but only those based on objective consideration, not those just rooted in hatred of Bates; they’re worthless and damaging.
LeedsForLife:
I fundamentally disagree with you there. Bates is a temporary custodian – fans are what truly makes a football club. I have more right to a say in the running of Leeds United than some Johnny-come-lately like Ken Bates.
How about German clubs, where the teams are at least 51% owned by their fans? They do alright. Barcelona, owned by their members who vote for their president? Doesn’t seem to do them any harm.
I’m not about to kow-tow to some bloke in a suit – especially one with a track record like Bates’ – just because Persons Unknown bought our club and installed him as chairman.
But it’s not a German club. It’s a British business. We have no more right to a say in the running of that or any other business than we have in how Tesco makes or spends its profits, even if we spend hundreds of pounds there a month.
British clubs are businesses operated under business regulations. They are entitled (for excellent reasons) to manage their affairs with privacy beyond basic rules of public accountability to ensure propriety. Their executives are answerable to their shareholders, not to their customers. If their customers aren’t happy they can take their custom away and the shareholders will give the executives a hard time and eventually put them to the sword.
I don’t say I don’t wish it was like you want it to be, and maybe like the German system if it’s as you describe, but it isn’t. It just isn’t, and that’s not Ken Bates’ fault.
And I have to say this… the level of business understanding, wisdom and objectivity exhibited on various blogs, by publishers and commenters alike – by the sort of people who might be motivated to get involved in the running of the club if they could – is extremely patchy at best. Football fans are too opionated and care too much about a limited part of ‘success’ and ‘good business’ to make the sort of decisions and plans that often need to be made.
You don’t kowtow. If you wish, you buy a ticket, watch a match, shout your support and opinions, comment on blogs. Is there anything else? Oh, yes, you can become a major shareholder and then they’ll have to kowtow to you, at least a bit.
Forward Sports Fund are based where? Owned by Outro who are registered in what country? Managed by Chateau Fiduciaire who are run from where? Run by a chairman who dwells where?
If this was a British club operated under British business regulations, we’d know who owned it. That’s the whole point.
By the way, here’s the website where you can read Tesco’s annual reports and find out how they make and spend their profits: http://ar2011.tescoplc.com/ This is the page where you can choose which ones to download: http://ar2011.tescoplc.com/download-centre.aspx
Good of them to be so transparent, isn’t it?
Thanks Moscowhite for publishing such an enlightening article and your measured and articulate response to Leedsforlife’s objections. It never ceases to amaze me that there are still people who believe that Bates has any interest in Leeds United Football Club beyond stripping it’s assets and ultimately selling it for a profit. You don’t need to be an accountant to find that the balance sheets should show more profit even before the “undisclosed transfers” are taken in to account. Whether the 1.25m fixed for 25 years was realistic is questionable but the clubs board should surely have been falling over themselves to accept the prospect as it represented an unbelievable zero risk opportunity, short term it was a really good offer and long term it was an astonishing deal.
LeedsForLife:
Actually in the end they did use a fair bit of it, and interviewed Councillor Carter about how the anonymity surrounding the deal caused it to collapse. Go figure.
If the BBC’s intention was to palm this information off on to “some blog” so that blog could “publicise it as an accusation” and “do their smearing for them” then they should have given it to some other blog that would actually have done that.
Instead they gave it to The Square Ball and we wrote an “erudite” and “professional” blog post that shared what is now (thanks to the Freedom of Information act) public information with Leeds United fans.
A nicely worded riposte!
I can’t see why you would have been motivated to publish the article and the material, spending what must have been quite a lot of time and effort, if it wasn’t for the purpose of implying impropriety – the same implication the BBC is making.
I appreciate that you’re publicising information as you’ve been given it, but you’re also publicising a particular emphasis for it – an emphasis that happens to be consistent with the BBC’s malign agenda (sorry, that word again). However, you aren’t publicising counter-information, presumably because the BBC didn’t give you it (no surprise there), or counter-argument.
I think you’ve got a mistaken emphasis and you’re helping the BBC in its malignity, but it’d be a bad job if awkward questions need asking and nobody asks them. Anyway, I’ve had enough; Ken Bates can answer the questions if/when they really have to be answered.
All right and sorry. Not ‘some blog’, though I think the BBC will see it that way, which was the emphasis I meant to convey. A good, well-written blog that I always read. Good night.
A couple of last thoughts, LeedsForLife. The reason I don’t like the word ‘agenda’ is because it implies something hidden. In my case I’d prefer to call it a ‘point of view’. You and I both have them, and they’re both clearly present in our discussion here. Every human being approaches every situation he or she meets from their own point of view, it’s just a fact of being alive. To call it an ‘agenda’ turns a natural part of human experience into something tawdry. Imagine a person with no opinions!
As far as publishing this article goes, of course it was clearly published because we think these letters reflect badly on the custodians of the club. We didn’t try to hide that at any stage. If you reread the article, you’ll see that the answer I gave you above about how this came about is actually already there in the article anyway. We think these letters raise certain questions, so we’re publishing them and asking them. And we said so.
If we weren’t publishing counter-arguments we’d be deleting your comments for a start. As I said earlier, it was only when you repeated your BBC ‘thing’ that I decided to reply – my view with blogs is normally that I (if I wrote it) get to have my say in the article, readers get their’s in the comments, and both can stand on their merits without another go round from me. You’re entitled to your opinion and when you click ‘Post Comment’, we publish it.
It’s worth pointing out, too, that in both the magazine and on this blog we’ve published several articles that are supportive of Bates. If we did get information that suddenly revealed that, to use an example I’ve used before, FSF has been run throughout its existence for the benefit of an orphanage run by nuns, yes, I’m certain we would print it: it would be the answer to the question we’ve been asking all along. And it would also be a heckuva story. But there doesn’t seem to be any information available anywhere that makes the ownership of Leeds United look good. Which is the origin of the whole problem.
Finally, I really think you’ve got some funny ideas about how the BBC works and how it ‘planned’ to use our blog. The programme tonight was made by a man at BBC Leeds called Neil Morrow. He reads our magazine and likes it and thought we’d be interested in this part of his research, so he sent it to us to read and to do with what we would. We actually went back and asked him if it was okay by him if we published it. That’s really as Machiavellian as it got. It may be of interest to you that we’re going to talk to Neil when we record our Podcast on Wednesday night (it’ll be out soon after), and we fully intend to ask him what he intended to achieve, whether he’s happy with the results, and what he thinks the point is of such investigating/muck-raking (depending on your point of view).
I find the argument of BBC “malignity” bizarre, btw. Leeds despite our current standing are a huge club and it’s a legitimate area of concern. If there was anything, no matter how small, that wasn’t absolutely nailed on true in that documentary, Ken Bates would’ve called in the lawyers (they need to earn that retainer somehow).
I think the arguments raised here by Leeds For Life (LFL)are fundamentaly in defence of corparate privacy and the right to carry on their business unmolested. So long as the products are forthcoming and the law is not broken then business is, well, their business (the owners).
Whilst Moscowhite argues that business, especially a football club, should not, for variuous reasons , be run under an opaque shroud of corparate transactions. I, for one, agree one hundred percent with Moscowhite for two main reasons.
Firstly LFL states we have, and should have, no reasons to be interested in who, how or why Tesco are run, so long as we are happy with the shopping experience. That outdated view is now contantly challenged by the ‘fair trade’ brigade, the ‘anti far East children sweat shops’ brigade, the exporting of ‘industrial waste’ brigade and so on. People do want to see transparent boardrooms and will vote with their wallets if the above is being practised. Bates and Co. believe they are beyond this need for transparency of the modern business. The banking crisis with its huge toxic debts and sub prime dealings were all hidden behind a ‘Batesian’ style accounting business and ultimately crashed because the BBC’s of this world could not, did not, expose them sooner. I am glad the fourth estate is alive and kicking when archaic clandestine business activity is rampant at LUFC. If the BBC indeed do have a grudging dislike for LUFC I don’t really care so long as they are exposing a situation regarding the welfare of my club.
Secondly, why, why is there this need for anomalous business practice surrounding Bates’s running of the club? Why do the owners of ER, LUFC, TA all seek anonymity behind off-shore governments? This raises the most important point why there are major concerns over this whole secretive venture.
The football league state no one body or person can hold a majority share holding in more than one club, thus transparency is crucial. There is a very good reason for that.
Bates company, Orato, bought the majority of LUFC shares recently. This company is an off-shore (Caymen Islands I believe) company. What if they also bought say Aston Villa under another anonymous group. What if they then bled LUFC, spending little, whilst feeding Villa to maximise the Premier clubs ability to buy players whilst starving LUFC of new recruits, or vice versa. It’s worth a hell of a lot more to finish in the Premiership top ten than the Championship. If this sort of activity were allowed to consume the league clubs the game is finished. This is why LFL we and the football league need answers we are not getting and why the BBC are right on the case.
LeedsForLife: earlier this year the BBC carried out a clandestine investigation into nursing homes uncovering abuse by staff, with the result that at least one nursing home was shut and criminal charges brought against staff. Is it the case that the BBC should not have carried out this investigation as they perhaps have an ‘agenda’ against private healthcare? The ‘customers’ of the nursing home should perhaps not have been interested in how the home was run.
It might help your argument if you could explain what you see as the BBC’s agenda. For what reason would the BBC be biased against Leeds. From my POV I can remember, over the last thirty years, politicians of all stripes railing against BBC bias. I take that to be a good thing.
All supporters claim bias exists in the media against their clubs, it’s part of our DNA and I think old red nose got there before LeedsForLife when it comes to the communists at the BBC.
But, given the number of times that we have been on television over the last few seasons we were probably in danger of becoming everyone’s favourite second club. Ken’s obviously the reason we’re not (if you accept that SG is doing his best with the budget he has).
Clearly now that Outro/Ken has bought the club, we can legitimately focus any criticism of the selection of how he dictates that the revenue is spent. Hopefully this criticism will be informed by published accounts of the Nevis based operation.
Like the council, we are still left with the problem of the ground & TA ownership and the “lost” income as a result, but there appears little to be done about this. However, when Ken “didn’t own the club”, we were assured that the original terms of the 25 year lease were transferred when Teak Trading bought the facilities from Barnaway. Presumaby this won’t change.
As for the past, the fundamental dichotomy (I had to) that exists between LeedsForLife and the majority of the other views is what we consider our football club to be. Any football club cannot be the business model put forward by LeedsForLife, it has too great a social influence and importance for that. It should never be a franchise.
It is clever of LeedsForLife to distil the argument into “why should we be bothered about the ownership?”, when, in addition to the fundamental points made by Hunter’s boots, the argument should be “why should the club be bothered about keeping the ownership secret?”.
There is no conspiracy here, it is fundamentally about tax avoidance and, whilst we may have to accept (at least for the moment) a businessman’s currently legitimate right to avoid the payment of tax on money earned and profits made in this country, whilst using the facilities that this country’s taxes provide, a football club should not be run like this. I don’t think this is romanticism and I, for one, am hoping that the report of the Commons select committee and maybe UEFA under Michel Platini go some way in setting the blue print for a future for football governance that is based around the importance of a footbal club to the supporters, the community and the city in which it is based.
normangunston says:
@madeinLeeds1960 the whole point of forums like TSB is for the fans to express their opinion about the club – positive and negative – if you’d prefer to be a sheep then point your keyboard elsewhere mate!
Norman,if, in offering support to some of the views of Leeds for Life I have upset you, (positive/negative?) I am sorry but your comment is just baaaaaaaa rmy …………..mate..
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