Dear Mr Bates I am writing to you to express my concern for the way Leeds United Football Club is being run. For a long time now I have suspected that the club is not being run in a manner that is in its best interests, instead serving other interests that may not be apparent on first inspection. At first I thought I would write about how you might better run the club, providing suggestions for things that could be done differently to ensure success for the club in the future. After a short time of thinking about it, however, I decided it would not be worth my time making suggestions, as a man as arrogant and obnoxious as yourself would simply disregard them, with an "I know best and you're an idiot" style response. You'll notice I have taken the time to write and format this letter in a manner that makes it easier to read as I systematically go through every reason why you should never have been allowed to gain control of any business. I'm not going to dig up your business history, but I have had a brief look over it and have seen that you have not once left a business in a better state than you found it. Chelsea's £80 million debt from building Chelsea Village is as good an example as any. Oh by the way, if you've forgotten, Chelsea Village was a financial black hole. You nearly ruined a club you supposedly support. Well done, Ken. Well done. This is a very potent piece of information when speaking of a man who prides himself so much on his business acumen, and one which makes me question a lot of things. So anyway, instead I decided I would write to you and express how I feel about you. I am tired of the way you are running the club. I am tired of seeing you put a higher priority on your own vain interests than on success on the pitch. As fans, after seeing the accounts released by the club a few weeks ago, we have all concluded that something doesn't add up. Money is vanishing from the club for reasons we can't explain. Put aside the fact that season tickets for the next two seasons have been sold as collateral for a building project that the club did not need, and I am quite confident will never provide a worthwhile return on investment (in fact, I expect it won't have a return on investment), and we can see that the club is spending millions of pounds keeping afloat other failing businesses. The Centenary Pavilion, that not only was paid for using club money, is now failing as a business, is a financial black hole, and is sucking money out of the club to keep it afloat. The same goes for Yorkshire Radio, which I still don't see the point in, match day coverage is poor and clearly just a propaganda machine for transmission of your own, vain opinion that is, quite frankly, worthless. The accounts for the Centenary Pavilion and Yorkshire Radio show that both businesses are making losses, yet neither have any staff. The staff are included on the payroll of Leeds United FC. So not only are we lending these businesses money to cover their costs, their costs are even more alarming, and costing us enough more money in wages. I should clarify that your opinion is worthless on the basis that you do not respect opinions that differ from your own. Lack of respect for the opinions of others to me means you do not deserve an opinion of your own. Respect is earned, not demanded, and you have yet to show any shred of evidence that you deserve respect. Why do you believe you can throw your weight around and play the blame game, blaming everybody you possibly can for the shortcomings of Leeds United, but somehow be exempt? Are you incapable of fault? Any mere suggestion that the board of directors are not doing a very good job is met with unreasonable hostility and the usual "I saved your club" line, but that would suggest that you're incapable of fault, infallible if you will. You're not God, Ken. You're capable of error just like the rest of the human race, and it's showing. The Extra Time Phone In on Yorkshire Radio is as good an example as any. After losses and questionable performances, occasionally somebody will call in with the intention of making a well reasoned argument as to why they believe the board is failing the football club. What happens to them? They get cut off. Not allowed. Blame everybody you want but not the board, they are incapable of fault. They'll keep pissing about with everything else until through some miracle Leeds United, one of the biggest clubs in the country, scrapes it's way out of the second tier of English football. Doesn't sound quite right, does it? Why would one of the biggest clubs in the country have to scrape it's way out of the second tier? "The manager signed poor players" "the players aren't trying hard enough and aren't earning the silly money we're paying them" "the fans are causing a hostile atmosphere that's putting the players off" are some examples of arguments you've used quite liberally, I am of course paraphrasing. The manager got what was available, which was the bargain bucket that nobody else wanted, but I shall go into this in further detail in a moment. The players are earning exactly what they are being paid, which is a mid-table Championship wage. The league table and financial reports for 2010-2011 show exactly this - our wage budget is just about in the middle, and so is the team. As for the fans, the fans have only started protesting recently after seeing the club show no ambition. The players were crap before that. It no longer matters how much effort you put in to deflecting blame away from yourself, Simon Grayson's comments today have confirmed, in terms of facts that cannot be argued, what we have suspected for a long time - that the current playing squad is piss poor because he was backed into a corner and forced to sign his third and fourth choice players. The corporate line that your colleague Mr Harvey has been spinning was that "we tried to get these players and they were going to sign until they got a better offer from the Premier League" - we now know this is not true. Jack Cork (Southampton) and Kaspars Gorkks (Reading) are both playing in the Championship. Reading confirmed promotion to the Premier League tonight, and Southampton are 5 points clear of third with two games to play. These were targets for Simon Grayson, targets that didn't turn us down to go to the Premier League. They turned us down because they weren't offered good enough contracts. One of these is a club that you take every opportunity to sing the praises of how they are run and how they have gone up having not spent much. So the line that "well he wanted more than we could afford" is directly contradictory to your own argument. I have to respect Simon taking the high road for the last 10 weeks, after the slanderous, inaccurate and downright insulting comments you have made about him at every opportunity, but I am glad he has finally come out and admitted that he was not backed as much as he'd have liked. While the proof was in the pudding in that all our signings were awful, loans and freebies late in the transfer window after the season had started, it's nice to finally hear Simon stand up for himself. On top of that, you are a liar. You are a bare faced liar. Thanks to your idiocy, I now have proof, factual evidence that you cannot wriggle your way out of. Attendance at Elland Road and fan interest in Leeds United has dwindled significantly in the last few months, not least highlighted by the significant drop in season ticket renewals. Oh but wait, we've sold the same number as we had this time last year haven't we? Just over 10 000? We broke 10 000 at the start of April so we're on target to match last years figure, having sold the same number as the same stage last year? Wrong. Taken from your Yorkshire Radio interview on 23/3/2011, regarding season ticket renewals: "Everything is looking good so thanks to the fans, the season tickets we have now sold 11,200 for next year, compared with 13,000 this year." So, we had made 1200 more season ticket renewals two weeks earlier last season. To me that is nowhere near having match last years figure, so I'd appreciate it if I wasn't lied to. It is insulting to my intelligence, although at least it's proof that you're a bare faced liar who will twist anything to avoid admitting you're wrong. For good measure it's worth noting that you've failed to deliver on every single promise you made in the 7 years since you gained control of Leeds United. Buying back Thorpe Arch and Elland Road were the highlighted ones, something which still hasn't been done and we're being fleeced for the thick end of £2 million a year for the privilege of using Elland Road Stadium. On top of that, every time you tell the story of how you only ever turned Simon down for one signing, his position and cost requirements changes. "I only turned him down for a centre back that was going to cost £600 000 on loan, because we already had 6. Or was it a central midfielder? We had 9 of those anyway so I told him where to stick it. That £1.5 million he was going to cost over the course of his contract was far more than he was worth, he should be happy with 6 shillings and a bag of penny sweets." Wait a minute, he was going to be a centre back on loan that was going to cost us £600 000, then he was going to be a central midfielder on loan that was going to cost us £600 000, then he was a central midfielder that was going to cost us £1.5 million over the course of his contract. Well, it supposedly only happened once, so which one is it?
A famous quote of yours, "If you want Premiership football, you pay Premiership prices", I'd like to add a little something to that. We're paying Premiership prices, so why are you paying lower mid table Championship prices for players? Why is the money that we're paying to go see Leeds United every week getting spent building executive boxes to keep a few corporate snobs happy (boxes that aren't even getting filled), instead of spending it on the team to provide a better entertainment service, which is what we're actually paying for? If you want to improve the corporate facilities, there's no point doing it while we're still in the Championship, because we don't have the quality of football, the high status visiting teams or the attention to get any customers to use our facilities, which is why all these business ventures are failing and will continue to fail. Don't try and argue that they're not failing, the proof is in black and white in your own poorly audited financial report on Leeds City Holdings. Subliminal messaging, something I suppose I should expect from someone so snide and manipulative. You've started buttering us up and trying to get us used to the idea of what you're planning to do in the summer, trying to lower expectations so we won't be as disappointed when it happens. "The problem is our large squad size". What large squad size? I haven't seen a single team at Elland Road this season who didn't have a bigger squad than us. Not one. So where is this large squad? Also it wasn't a large squad last season, in fact the problem last season was not enough players to rotate. That was down to a small squad, which is why Simon brought in so many additions and inflated the squad size. Of course, more players means spreading the wages more thinly instead of letting him have a few more quid out of the £3 million profits we made before we even started selling all our best players. As for expensive, hard to have an expensive squad when it's both small and filled with bargain bucket players. "We're planning on cutting down the size of the squad and using the youth players more". Sounds like a long term plan, something that has been non-existent during your tenure - bring the talent through the youth! Except that's not what we're intending to do, it's just the cheaper option. Use the youth players because they're cheap, then sell the good ones for more money. It's not a long term plan to develop a team, it's a short term plan to cut costs. "Why are all the fans angry?", I hear you ask, followed by "we're turning a profit! You're never happy". Maybe because we find absolutely no entertainment in turning a profit. And I mean that entirely. Absolute zero is the entertainment value I find in the club turning a profit. Turning a profit is only entertaining to businessmen who reap the rewards of those profits. We are merely fans who want to be entertained by a successful football team. This is why I have stopped going to Elland Road. This is why I will not be renewing my membership, something which is a complete scam in itself, pay money for bugger all service that we should really have anyway. Loan players. Yes they cost money, thanks for that Captain Obvious. Do they cost as much in wages and sometimes in fees as a permanent signing would? Perhaps, but rarely. The main reason you get such a massive hard-on over the usage of loan players is no commitment. Even if they cost the same in wages and command a loan fee, we don't have to commit to them. Get a player on a permanent and they are here for a few years, if it doesn't work out for them then they are stuck at the club like Billy Paynter. He might be a bad example, his determination to keep trying to get in the first team is exactly the sort of attitude we want at Leeds, now all he needs to do is deliver the goods, something I fully expect him to do now he's in better shape and performing better. It's probably because he hasn't played in so long that he's been unable to redeem his appearance bonus of a free bargain bucket from KFC. Mika Vayrynen might be a better example. If you get a player on a permanent contract you risk wasting money in the unlikely event that they aren't good enough! Except it's significantly more likely when you find players unproven in England that are unattached - they are probably unattached for a reason. But this is where the problem lies with loan players, the squad changes more often because players are here for less time. Any player we do get that does turn out to be brilliant, half the time we don't sign them because their club won't let them go or "they want too much in wages". We should get Alex McCarthey, but Reading won't let him go, and rightly so. The only loan player that you could argue has worked out so far this season is Darren O'Dea, but I still think he's crap. The transfer policy is decided by you, not the manager, so if it ends up in him having to go in the loan market because he has no other option, it's on you. Not him. "But the manager signs the players", yep, he does. He signs whatever players he can get his hands on because he couldn't get his first choices, because he didn't have the financial backing. Onto my next point, which is selling our best players. I must ask, if, like you claim, we got fleeced for Max Gradel, why sell him at all? I do not understand why we sold him. He has been a missing link in our team this season, his creativity, flair and combination with Snodgrass allowed us to pressurise teams into submission, which took pressure away from our mediocre defence. Without him, we've been awful. Of course, he's not the only good player we had, but his loss has definitely been noticed. All from a club that said "we're not selling our best players". When he came out in an interview and said he hadn't been offered a contract, I took it with a pinch of salt at first and figured he was just playing hard ball to get a better contract. With hind sight, I believe him. It's not that he wouldn't sign a contract you were prepared to offer him, you never offered him one in the first place because you wanted to cash in. The "he wouldn't sign a reasonable contract" party line is no longer enough. Howson was the same. You sold him because he wouldn't sign. He wouldn't sign because you showed him no ambition. Snodgrass is unlikely to sign after his comments at Lorimer's bar last week. I am so happy Snodgrass said what he said, he openly slated the way your administration has handled player contracts. He said there were offers for him last summer and he only stuck around on the basis of promises that were never kept. He slagged you off for selling the club captain Jonny Howson. Oh and we know Howson was somewhat forced out. He wanted to stay, but he wanted to stay on the basis of proof that you shared his ambition. I recently watched his interview after he signed for Norwich City, he looks absolutely devastated and close to tears throughout, having been forced out of the club he loves just because he refused to sign a piss poor contract. Paying your club captain £4000 a week and then slagging him off for not signing, all the while claiming you're spending a lot more than most clubs (recently proven to be rubbish by the release of all clubs financial reports) - that is administrative suicide. And all these players that get sold, we're told it all goes back into "Simon's pot" or "Simon's warchest", or I suppose I should rename it "Colin's Cauldron" now, but the budget barely feels the benefit. It doesn't seem to get spent. If we assume that the £9.5 million transfer budget that you touted is covered entirely by our turnover from ticket sales and merchandising, which is a reasonable assumption based on this being the bottom line of what we can afford to do without having to worry about covering the costs, then factor in that we've sold between £3.5 million and £5 million worth of players this season (£750k we got from Schmeichel, £1.76 million for Gradel (after paying off Leicester), £1-2 million for Howson), why is it that there's only a £2 million "overspend"? Where's the rest of it? It didn't go into Simon's Pot, did it? Well actually it probably paid for the three loan signings that were brought in for the grand total of less than a month each, to cover for players we should have replaced months earlier. I think it's about time I wrapped up, because I'm getting tired of arguing the same points I am constantly forced to argue with the idiots that you have managed to brainwash. I just felt it was necessary to write this letter as my emails to Mr Harvey have gone down without any response, probably because he hasn't a prayer of making any sort of plausible argument to the points I have made. Either that or its because as a paying customer my role is to blindly back the team and keep ploughing my hard earned money into a club that's showing no ambition or desire to do what is required to get back into the Premier League, or take my opinion that I wasn't allowed to have in the first place elsewhere. If you want to run a dictatorship where the little people aren't allowed an opinion, but should just shut up and keep paying to keep everything running, then **** off to the middle east and do it there. Since you're so obsessed with building, I'll give you a LEGO set to play with on the plane. We're Leeds United, we've all had enough. Yours sincerely Mark Richardson Disillusioned Leeds United fan and proud "dissident"
PS: since you do not live in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and as such you do not pay taxes to its government (or at all as you live in a tax haven), you are not entitled to an opinion on the affairs of its government. You need to shut your mouth and stop slagging off what the government is doing. Damian Collins, that "Manchester United fan with a personal vendetta against Leeds United" is, quite frankly, one of the best things that could happen to Leeds United. We all suspect it's you and/or your cronies that own Elland Road, which would explain a lot of the suspicious activity regarding the ground and why it's so easy for you to build new stuff on it. PPS: Either you saved our club, in which case you owned it at the time (something you swore in court you did not, that you were merely the administrator - meaning the contradictory statement that you saved our club is, indirectly, a fellony), or you did not save our club. Arbitrary anyway, when the only reason we had to go into administration was the £18 million debt owed to companies that were suspiciously willing to write off that debt if you remained in control.
The other members of the board being Bates' personal arse-lickers Shaun Harvey and Peter Lorimer, and Yvonne Allen who worked with him at Chelsea?! I doubt they'd ever lose confidence in him. He could reintroduce Thalidomide and they'd make excuses for him. Agree overall though, boycotting is the only way we can put him in a position where he can no longer fund his building projects with our revenue and is thus inclined to sell the club instead of being hostile to every takeover attempt.
I think the building projects are over now, instead the money is being used to keep the new businesses afloat since they're not making any profit
The hotel and leisure complex are still to be built. After they're done, Bates will no doubt move onto the West Stand and start building that up 'so we have Premiership facilities for when Roberto makes us a Premiership club, if he can get rid of some of the poor signings Neil Warnock made, of course'. ROSY FUTURE AHEAD.
They are over for now. Who knows when they'll decide to start building again but I have a hunch it won't require Premier League. Why would it when we're making so much money? It just does not add up, none of it adds up at all. Why is £7 million on corporate facilities, that are unlikely to make much profit at least for the forseeable future, a better investment than buying back Elland Road for £14 million? Buying back Elland Road for £14 million saves us £1.8 million a season, paying for itself after 8 seasons. The development of the East Stand is unlikely to ever pay for itself, but if it does it will take a good 20 years or so. You can't make this stuff up, can you? A loan to buy back Elland Road would be piss easy to get in the current financial state of Leeds United. With the stadium itself as collateral, worth far more than £14 million, the interest rate on such a loan even given our financial history would be so small I could cry.
I would like to add to this that my intention for this email is not to change kens mind on anything. I know he won't take on board anything I've said, I know he probably won't even read it. But these words flow so easily for me. I find it's a minimal amount of effort and I take an odd satisfaction and sense of enjoyment out of writing these things. The intention is to annoy him. Regardless of how much you think he doesn't care what anybody else thinks, his behaviour is typical of an attention seeking child. Of course he cares what people think of him, he wants people to think he's amazing for what he does and how he is. When they don't because he's not, instead of looking inward and trying to find out why, he lashes out and says "well **** you, you're wrong, I'll do what I want". His behaviour is not typical of someone who is only driven by money. It is typical of someone driven by power, and very much of someone who can't admit fault. People who can't admit fault are extremely (and I mean extremely) sensitive to criticism by nature. Making a point of not pulling any punches in this letter, I intend to touch on as many nerves as possible. I am someone who genuinely doesn't care what comes of sending this letter because I have nothing to lose. I am making accusations that I cannot back up, I am even admitting that I have no proof to back them up, simply on the grounds that in the likelihood that I hit the nail on the head, based on his psychological make up, compared to touching a nerve, it's the metaphorical equivalent of stabbing him in the gut. Regardless of how little proof I have for any accusations I make, if they are false then no harm done, if they are true then reading that somebody is onto him might make him think "oh ****, they're onto me". Just as he gets riled every time the BBC starts up an investigation or every time the government tries to force more transparency.
Marko, Thanks for putting the time into this, but frankly you might as well save yourself the price of the airmail. There's no way I'm reading all that. Best regards, Ken
So basically you're trying to push Ken over the edge and leave him a quivering wreck. Good Luck, I'll look forward to seeing him carted off in a straight jacket. please log in to view this image
Could it be that Bates already owns it offshore? Also, my understanding is that Leeds credit rating is such that we couldn't beg a loan for a bag of crisps!
Selling preferred stock with a guaranteed 25% return regrdless of term and selling future season ticket revenue appears to support that theory.
