Taken from Yorkshire Radio’s interview with Leeds United owner Ken Bates today…
‘Mr Chairman’ speaks to Ben Fry about Ipswich, the table, Jonny Howson, contracts, Simon’s Pot, Fabian Delph and Charlie Sale of the Daily Mail.
Ben Fry: Chairman, a win against Ipswich on Saturday. Not necessarily the best performance but at this stage three points is three points.
Ken Bates: Yes. we’re happy to take them when we can. I was talking to Simon after the game and he was saying that some of the players are a bit nervous at the moment when they go out and start at Elland Road because of the high expectations that they carry. But they just have to get on with it and overcome their nervousness and the fans can sort of help that by making a fuss of them as they come out and keep cheering them on. Booing them doesn’t help. Hardly improves their confidence. We have played well a number of times this season and not won and deserved the points and haven’t got them so to not to play well against Ipswich and still get the three points is some small measure of compensation.
BF: It has been a strange few games at the start of 2012. It’s the third game in a row where the team have found themselves behind and then up against 10 men.
KB: Yeah, we’re always happy to take it when it’s on offer. We’ve had a few players sent off, what we consider unfairly at times but these things even themselves out over the season. Don’t forget when we played Ipswich Town at their ground we were leading 1-0 and Aidy White got sent off, we thought unfairly, and we finished up conceding two goals in the last few minutes so this has equalled that injustice – or redressed that injustice – and gave us three points that we wanted and improved our goal difference.
BF: That win puts the club back within touching distance of the play-off players but it looks like there could be 10 or 12 teams in the mix-up at the end of the season. Would you go with that?
KB: Well it looks like that at the moment but of course the gap is already opening up below the 12th so the club who has got 40 points, the one after that has got 37 so it’s a bit of a gap but certainly at the moment, it’s a dogfight. But I think we’re disappointed because we had a pretty poor December but quite a lot of other clubs must have had the same because, with the exception of Birmingham City who has come up through the ranks, we haven’t fallen behind in the points race. We’re one point off the play-off place and we’re only eight points of automatic promotion and 11 points from the championship position. So what is pleasantly surprising is although I sad we had a bad December, it looks to me as though most of the other clubs have as well because we’re still all together in the dogfight. As I said before, with the exception of Bimingham, which will be an interesting one when we play them next Tuesday. If we beat them, we could be right back in the play-offs again. But it seems to me that it’s going to be a really hard fight, particularly March and April, when we have so many games to play in just seven weeks. That will sort out the men from the boys and also test the stamina of the various club’s squads’ fitness.
BF: Now the big story of the last seven days has been the departure of Jonny Howson. He completed his move to Norwich yesterday on a three-and-a-half year deal. When the bid came in, did it take yourself and the club by surprise?
KB: Well it did, and there has been so much rubbish talked so let’s try put the situation in some sort of context. Jonny Howson, we checked on this a little while ago… Jonny Howson is 24 in May and his contract ends in June. That means if he leaves, he leaves on a Bosman at the end of the summer, because his contract runs out in June we would be entitled to no compensation whatsoever. Nothing. Nothing for the 14 years that we spent nurturing and training and bringing him up and promoting him. Furthermore of course, he hurt his leg. It wasn’t a foul, just one of those unfortunate things. He fell awkwardly against Millwall and he has been out of action ever since and he is expected to be back either sometime next month or even March. So we were astonished when Norwich came in and offered us which after a bit of bartering finished up at about £2million, and to take the offer was a no-brainer. We had been working on Jonny for over 14 months now trying to persuade him to sign a contract and he steadfastly refused to do so, saying he wanted to keep his options open because he wanted to play in the Premiership. And of course we couldn’t guarantee promotion nor could any other club but it’s a bit of an idiot’s situation where a club captain wouldn’t commit himself to the club. But as usual, the matter was left to the manager because you have a precedent with Beckford, you remember. I’ll come back to Beckford later but I just thought I’d bring him up now. And the question was, do we take the money for him now and say no and with a bit of luck, get six weeks out of him, maybe eight games, before he goes for free? And as usual, it was left to the manager to make the final decision. He consulted his backroom staff and said “take the money” so we did. That means now that we have that fighting fund in the pot to reinvest, which it will be reinvested in players. However, we’re not going to invest the money simply for the sake of buying players. There’s no point in doing that. We intend to buy players which commit their future to Leeds United and have the ability to improve on our present squad and to strengthen the squad, not just make up the numbers. The other complication is that with 29, well with Jonny gone now it’s 28, there are 28 first-team players in the squad. It’s one of the largest squads in the Football League and bigger than some in the Premiership. It’s too much because we’re already £2.25million over our transfer budget, which is too much and unsustainable. So the manager had a meeting with Gwyn Williams and Shaun Harvey yesterday, I don’t know the outcome of it yet because I’ve been busy on other matters, to decide what, where, how, who’s going and who do we want to get in. Who’s available? There might be better players available in June and July that are available now because the players for sale now are obviously ones that don’t fit in to their existing club’s plans. Well why is that? Are they the wrong character? Are they not fit? Are they below par? Or wrong attitude? Or not good enough? The only ones we want are those that are going to make an immeasurable improvement to Leeds United. So the sums are there but they are not going to be spent willy nilly. Fans will have to be patient. I know it’s very frustrating and of course one of the biggest problems that adds to this frustration is the rumour and speculations printed on the websites, Facebook, Sky News, Sky Sports News, the newspapers. There’s a Leeds United fan at my hotel at the moment. He said “I see we’re going for so and so then” I said “who’s that” “Oh,” he said. “we’re not then?” I said “what are you taking about?”. Apparently he had seen it flash on Sky Text or somebody had seen it flash on Sky Text. A lot of this trouble comes from agents. They’re hawking their clients around, some of them don’t give a damn about their clients, they just want to make money and agents fees and they try to incite or generate interest but don’t care that it can unsettle the player and upset fans. But that’s the world we live in at the moment and the world we’ve got the live with.
BF: Two players whose names have been mentioned; Snodgrass and Clayton. They’ve denied any speculation, the manager has as well. It must be very infuriating for everyone involved.
KB: Well it is because of the fans who get naturally frustrated and start shouting and bawling when nothing has happen. Neither Snodgrass or Clayton are out of contract at the end of the season. They’re both happy and playing well. I mean, Snoddy’s return after his appendix operation was nothing short of miraculous and he’s more than contributed to the team since his return. Adam Clayton, it said his contract had stalled or something, I suspect the agent put that out because contract negotiations haven’t stalled and in any case, his contract runs until 2013 so there’s no real hurry. These negotiations are better done outside the transfer windows. First of all, there’s no time and secondly it enables people to concentrate their mind.
BF: You mentioned on Jonny Howson the time the club have put into him and the fact he was captain. Do you understand the fans’ disappointment that the man they thought had been here so long has moved on?
KB: Well of course I can understand the fans’ disappointment! They can understand my disappointment! But this is a free country. Under the Bosman rule you can’t hold him down and make him sign a contract. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be much good on the pitch would he, getting his own back by not playing properly. Of course I understand it but that’s part of the game and there’s nothing you can do about it. I mentioned earlier about Beckford. I thought I’d go back to that. Two years ago, Newcastle came and offered us £1.8milllion for Beckford and like Howson, he was out of contract and over 24 at the end of the season. We discussed it again with the manager and we thought that Beckford would be instrumental in getting us promotion and so it prove. But of course, at a loss of £1.8million on Beckford. For those interested, he was offered back to us last month. But in the end we kept him and he scored the winning goal against Bristol Rovers and we got promotion, which was far more valuable to the club than the £1.8million from Newcastle. So, there, we justified our decision. Here, I think, we’ve justified our decision again. Jonny is out for most of the rest of the season so wasn’t going to help us do much to get promotion this year and we trousered the money and moved on.
BF: In and amongst all this, it has kind of been lost that Fabian Delph has returned on loan. A good signing to add some quality and try push on for the next few weeks.
KB: Yeah, I mean Fab was very happy to come back. He had been injured, he got back as a fringe player playing and then being sub and then going on. But he’s fit now and we’re very happy and very appreciative of Aston Villa for helping us out again. Of course it won’t do Fab any harm and it will definitely improve the quality of our midfield.
BF: Now you already talked on the wage budget. You did talk in your programme notes at the weekend exactly where the wage budget stood. Did you feel it was important to try give some clarity to that?
KB: Well it is. Now the fact of the matter is our wage bill at £9.5million – the budget – is one of the highest in the Championship. It’s not THE highest because you’ve got clubs like Middlesbrough and West Ham and Birmingham who are still running down their Premiership wage bills or wage contracts, if they were foolish enough not to include a relegation clause in the players’ contracts which is now becoming general practice. So at £9.5million we’re pushing the boat out. And I’ve explained before how that money is spent whether it’s spend on transfers or wages, it doesn’t matter. it’s all spent. And that’s up to the manager to decide. And I thought it was worthwhile pointing out the wage bill at the moment is going to be £11.75million instead of £9.5million. That’s 23 per cent over budget. They say where’s the transfer money gone? Well, Schmeichel’s money went on Lonergan and Pugh. With the five per cent levy and agents fees, it about evens itself out. Of the Max Gradel money, which we got from St Etienne, first of all we’ve only had half of it anyway. Secondly, Leicester City were on a 17.5 per cent sell-on. So we don’t get as much out of it as you might think. And of course since we have been paid in Euros, because St Etienne is a European club then you have to remember that the pound has strengthened against the Euro. So whereas when we did the deal, it was about €1.10 to the pound, it’s now €1.20 to the pound. So we’ve probably lost about seven per cent of the total value anyway. But that money is still there and that money is going to be spent but when it’s spent, it’s going to be spent wisely.
BF: Now let’s move on to the season ticket deadline. The renewal deadline for the frozen prices is January 31. How are the sales progressing at the moment?
KB: Oh yes, well I’m glad you raised that particular point because my old adversary Charles Sale as he describes himself now in the Daily Mail… I used to remember when he was Charlie Sale. He is a bit of a Charlie anyway. On average, he rings me up about once a fortnight, digging for dirt or gossip and, on average, once a fortnight I put the phone down on him. Then he rings back again and Susannah answers him and gives him a piece of her mind and takes the mickey out of him because that’s all he deserves anyway. Anyway, so in his little column, since I wouldn’t answer questions on matters relating to Chelsea, he writes that in my letter about encouraging people to renew season tickets with a price freeze, he said about us trying to “reduce the large first-team squad which isn’t a great sales pitch when chasing supporters’ cash”. Well, unlike Charlie Sale, I think most of our fans are intelligent and understand what I am trying to tell them. Mr Sale, of course, doesn’t know very much about football, although he thinks he does, he’s just a gossip columnist and I think he has paid out libel sums from time-to-time because he doesn’t check his facts before it puts things into print. However, much to Charlie’s dismay, money is coming in very well indeed and I’m very pleased about it and I’m pleased for the fans for taking advantage of the extended interest free credit terms which we have managed to organise. So things are looking good in more ways than one. And don’t forget, the deadline is next Tuesday night, funnily enough, the 31st of January so those people that hand their tickets in personally, you’ve got a final chance in just six days time.
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We should have one of the highest wage budgets because our ticket sales revenue is probably the highest in the division. Why does Bates think it is ok to treat the Leeds fans as idiots (morons).
Personally I hate the Daily Mail, but yet again he is embarrassing the club with his arrogant manner in dealing with the media. A little bit of humility and professionalism might earn him some trust from the fans.
I hate that vearded bastard he is full of shit !
So Kenneth finally states “most of our fans are intelligent” ( in his last question ). So, Bates, please can we have your views about the 90% recent pole that stated that supporters have no confidence in Bates running our club, and want him out ….. CAN WE HAVE YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT THIS PLEASE KENNETH ??
“These negotiations are better done outside the transfer windows. First of all, there’s no time and secondly it enables people to concentrate their mind.”
Wow
Where does the budget figure of 9.5 million come from? What % is it of overall revenue? Apart from 2 billionaire owned clubs in the Prem league how does the running of our club differ from clubs of a relative size and income. How come we can’t compete in the transfer market with these clubs? Some transparancy would be very welcome but it just not going to happen is it?
You have had seven years to realize how son was 24 in may & his contract lapses in June… Ginger to give you s tip lees is 24 in exactly 4 years just before his contact lapses that is why a man with half a brain would have given him a 3 year deal!
We were offered beck ford … But he wouldn’t accept the wages that we offered him when we signed him from wealdstone!
And here are the current squad totals for the Championship teams:
34 West Ham
31 Southampton
30 Cardiff
28 Boro
30 Hull
25 Birmingham
28 Blackpool
37 Reading
28 LEEDS
30 Brighton
29 Derby
27 Burnley
33 Leicester
37 Palace
28 Barnsley
24 Peterborough
21 Portsmouth
30 Watford
27 Bristol city
29 Millwall
31 Ipswich
28 Forrest
36 Doncaster
28 Coventry
We are NOT one of the biggest in the league, there are 13 teams with larger squads.
*stats from http://www.Soccerbase.com
Good stuff Lee we need to keep dismantling Bates arguments and show him up for what he is.
‘contract negotiations haven’t stalled and in any case, his contract runs until 2013 so there’s no real hurry’ really? Will you never learn Ken… Beckford, Howson… White, Snodgrass, Clayton
I think there a couple of important points in what Bates has said. Firstly he has confirmed that the £9.5 million covers wages & transfer fees. On a turnover of approx £30 million we are spending less than 35% of the turnover on player costs (wages & transfer fees). No wonder we can’t attract or keep good players!!!
Secondly Bates has started to mention that we don’t receive all the transfer fees upfront. Fair enough, my understanding is that it is the norm for transfer fees to be paid over the length of the contract. This begs the question why don’t we organise payment of our transfer fees in the same way? For example have we really paid £500K for Pugh up front? I very much doubt it but it is a convienant way for Bates to explain why we have no money.
It’s also worth noting that Bates said in his programme notes that Leeds received £1.75 million after payments to Leicester, the FA etc. given the HOwson money of £2 million there should be £3.75 million available for transfer fees. Will we spend it? 7 days before the transfer window closes, will we bollocks!!!!
Could I for one minute suggest that LUFC fans take a different view about KB, just look as his comments from the stand point that this man is actually trying to bring our club back to the EPL but this time in a sustainable way, instead of boom and bust like what we have all suffered, he is taking a step by step approach to the rebuilding of LUFC.
I try to take his comments objectively instead of seeing him as the devil incarnate.
Do any of us really think that if we hadn’t got promoted that JH would of signed a contract with us because I don’t think he would of done, mistakes may of been made in the length of his last contract, it should of been shorter by a year then the club sould of still been able to get compesation if he walked away.
In my opinion KB is more likely to dig his heels in if he thinks the fans are right against him so maybe taking a different aproach would work.
It could be time to work with the current board whilst they are there.
TSB, LUST should contact KB for peace talks, nobody wins when war continues, we as fans will not win and the club that we all love will not win!
Why is boom and bust the alternative to Bates? That is exactly the sort of spin he wants us to believe and I’m sorry mate you have fallen for it.
There is a half way house that allows good prudent financial investment in the team but Bates is not willing to let the club run at break even for a few seasons because he wants his annual profit to spend in his Monaco tax haven.
No one wants the club to recklessly gamble on promotion but the revenue created should allow us to be far more competitive if he stopped bleeding the club dry.
He served a purpose post Ridsdale but he is now holding the club back for his own personal gain.
This blog boils my piss on a weekly basis… Die BATES you lying, theiving tax evading moron!
Ken, Don’t forget your self assessment tax return is also due on 31.01.12
CUNT
Why cant he simply hold out some form of olive branch to the fans…..its not difficult and he would benefit financially. I simply dont understand the man….and as such simply dont know what to do about my £633 renewal…..love Leeds but hate being fleeced
Dellboy you remind me of Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandella or George Bush or their again Tony Blare,
I think your pissing in the wind mate, the LUFC fans have deep resentment against Ken after taking over after the biggest disaster in the clubs history and tried to make the club solvent once again, nice try but I feel that your words will fall on deaf hears
Sound argument Del Boy but it contains very little fact. None of our arguments do because we are run by a shady bastard who won’t be honest with us. Everything he does is smoke and mirrors. The fans ain’t fools but Bates treats us like we are.
Does anyone else find kens diatribe difficult to read, I don’t know whether its just the ramblings of an old lunatic or he’s genuinely illiterate (note to self; check spelling when criticizing Unc’s verbal output
Aside from coming across stupid I also think he talks shite, while I’m on it anyone else fed up with the rubbish we are constantly linked with signing? These windows are supposed to generate a little excited however the rumors circulating don’t even offer any respite, Oh well, MOT !!!
<35% of a football clubs income being set aside for the running and ‘developing’ of it’s core business (playing football) seems very short sighted to say the least. Interesting table Lee, it appears to show that in addition to not being willing and / or able to compete for players with the likes of Doncaster Rovers (in terms of the transfer fees they have committed to) we also cant compete in the recourses on offer to our Manager (in terms of their squad size), no disrespect to Donny intended of course.
There is no denying, Ken Bates is an intelligent man. yes out of touch with the wants and needs of the fans and sorely lacking in the ability to connect with any form of compassion or sincerity to those he is fleecing out of hard earned cash. But there is no denying, if he genuinely is lying (which he most likely is), the way he comes across in interviews is frighteningly good acting worthy of an Oscar. But if he is telling the truth and genuinely cares about LUFC…he is doing something drastically wrong…either way, I feel the time has come for him and Leeds to part, hopefully he will do this soon, and not take us down in a blaze of un-glory. another thought, is what secrets and lies will come out when he eventually does go?…i dread to think, but want to find out and have bates out sooner rather than later. MOT
I concur with alienbumnote.
Ben Fry is a little weasel as well isn’t he? I know it’s hard times in the country right now but surely there are nicer and more dignified ways to earn a living. I can’t imagine he sat there on careers day thinking ‘doctors are good n all that but what I’d really like is some old geezer to stick his hand up my jacksy and force me to read a bunch of pre-authorised questions’ Poor bastard…
as far as i am concerned we are little more than a feeder club nowadays.. with no real ambition….and thats just how papa smurf likes it….not to big to be on the tax mans radar constantly….but big enough to keep selling our best players,just to fill the bank of monocco’s vaults, for papa smurf’s rainy day fund.
Notice he doesn’t mention the Delph money o yes sorry that’s because he spent it all investing in a stadium we don’t even own
Did i read that right that Beckford was offered back to us last month?
if i’m wrong some one correct me please didn’t Sir (MORON) Ken Bates say that leeds budget is on match attendences and running the club had to come from some where else (i.e sponsors and merchandising) ok so lets just say average leeds ticket about £30 average attendance about 25,000 that will equal three quaters of a million a game! we play 23 home ties a season in the league which equals to £17,250,000 thats 17 MILLION TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS !!!! ok you have season ticket holders but you also have higher ticket prices and higher attendences and cup games and other players that have sold and tv money or whatever so when he says our budget is £9,500,000 which over a squad of 28 players is average wage of £6500 a week for a player which aint guna get us back home where is that other £8 million!!!! he is taking all our money to the tax haven of monaco!!!! we are being robbed!!!!! its our club not his !!!! BATES OUT !!!!!!!
Bates your a wanker …fuck off from our club .
so not one of the largest squads in the division, with 11.5m on wages i thought he was running this club prudently sounds like hes got a load of overpaid average players on the books because he wont invest a proper transfer fee or on the otherhand he could just be lying through his teeth as usual. time for this old crook to sell up i think either way because hes not fit for purpose.
So working out at 11.75million wage budget and 28 players. If I’m doing my maths right the average player is on £8,742 per week? Im guessing Donkeys like Forssell will be on the upper limit of this leaving not much room for negotiations with Howson etc. Howson was a sickner but with Norwich probably offering 20k plus what could he do. The problem is they see it as a job, fan or no fan as soon as they play football for a living they are motivated by money. Gone are the days of legends with one club for a whole season. I hope they take the picture of Howson down from the club shop ‘every time I put on the white shirt it feels like a dream’ , yeh cheers Johnny. Either the board are impossible to negotiate with or Johnny saw the £ signs.
Grayson has gone over budget to 11.5 million. Yet at the same time, we have the Gradel money still available to be spent. How can we have spent the whole budget and more yet still have over 1 million left to spend? Seems contradictory to me. Implies that the budget stuff is all made up.
deluded old bastard
Just as a matter of interest … Norwich who bates admires had a player wages bill …. Not a f…king pot which was 12.4m last season against a turnover of just short of £20m …. Our turnover was circa£29m but we budgeted to spend £9.5m on wages and transfer fees. Indded given our huge investment … Approaching £10m in corporate facilities and our superb management team I would imagine turnover is now closer to £40m
Quote from Bates ramblings above “Mr Sale, of course, doesn’t know very much about football, although he thinks he does, he’s just a gossip columnist and I think he has paid out libel sums from time-to-time because he doesn’t check his facts before it puts things into print.”
Pan calling the kettle grimy ar*e Bates you have been in court more times than Rumpole and Judge Judy you crook i haven’t been to ER road this season the first time in 40 + years but I won’t be taken for a fool by that old goat the day he leaves i’ll be straight back down to ER
KB: “ . . . we’re not going to invest the money simply for the sake of buying players. There’s no point in doing that. We intend to buy players which commit their future to Leeds United and have the ability to improve on our present squad and to strengthen the squad, not just make up the numbers. The other complication is that with 29, well with Jonny gone now it’s 28, there are 28 first-team players in the squad. It’s one of the largest squads in the Football League and bigger than some in the Premiership”.
Er, let me get this right, we don’t just buy players “for the sake of it” – if that’s right, how the hell did we end up with such a big squad of mediocre players Ken?
Secondly, who’s fault is it that we’re £2.25m over our transfer budget? Who’s in charge Ken? Who’s got the cheque book? Shaun Harvey? you? One of the cleaners? Please don’t try & kid me that Grayson has his hands on the till!
When it comes running a business you certainly like to ‘talk the talk’ but the reality is that (assuming you’re not actually trousering our money) you’re running a pretty shit business that’s constantly skint, has a terrible public image & who’s customers are leaving in droves.
The true measure of the success of football team is it’s league position & number of trophies won. Despite our multi million pound turnover (that dwarfs the vast majority of our competitors) we’re currently the 29th best team in England & haven’t won anything in 20 years (To be fair, I only blame Bates for the last 7 years of underachievement).
All we get from this guy is never ending gut churning stream of lies & half truths. I sometimes wonder if Bates is actually aware of what people think about him. Perhaps he lives in a ‘bubble’ surrounded by Yes Men who keep telling him how well he’s doing, whilst he swans around the globe on a never ending VIP vacation. Actually, come to think of it, that’s almost certainly what’s happening!!!
I need a drink!
well said revie is king!
bates wont go of his own accord.
the writings on the wall
feb 2012 – no permenant signings just a couple of speculative loan deals involving players who nobody wants. billy barn door is ‘like a new signing’
things go from bad to worse on the pitch.
mar 2012 – fans organise a full boycot of elland road. you can almost picture the scenes on football focus.
would bates then be forced to sell? or as i expect would he get more satisfaction from watching the club and the team implode? could we as Leeds fans face building the club from the ashes?
some tough decisions lie ahead