Yet another International break and no league football to speak of and am I sick of this stop start season, its a pain. To make things worse next season starts early on August the 6th and breaks up 13th November because we have to play a fooking World Cup in Qatar and the season gets going again December 28th after the World Cup final. The season then carries on until May 29th, so a long season yet again. This week what future for our club? Some stuff here about the 49ers and their new shares. All signs suggests 49ers chief Paraag Marathe wants “full control” at Leeds United after increasing his shareholding at Elland Road, according to Graham Smyth. Last week, the 49ers increased their stake in the Yorkshire club to 44 per cent, taking a sizeable chunk out of Andrea Radrizzani’s majority ownership. Yorkshire Evening Post journalist Smyth believes this latest move by Marathe means he’s likely to want a full takeover at Elland Road with Radrizzani set to make a huge profit on the Premier League club. “Less than a year after that last increase, the 49ers have bought a little more of the pie. This time, there was little fanfare. Radrizzani’s partners appear content to tuck their feet a little further under the table quietly, but it does feel like their involvement is only leading towards one thing – full control,” Smyth wrote on the Yorkshire Evening Post website. “Why else would they have traversed the Atlantic in the first place? Why else would they have invested to this degree, undertaken so many fact-finding missions, explored how they could augment and develop Elland Road and brought Peter Lowy, billionaire Westfield heir, to the table with them?” Smyth added: “The 49ers should not be unfairly tarred with the brush used to paint other US investors in the top flight, not when they’re yet to put a foot wrong. They will, by now, have an idea of what will and will not fly at Leeds. If their intention is to take over from Radrizzani, who will one day walk away with a considerable amount of money and a place in history having transformed the club’s fortunes and led them back to the Premier League, they know they have to prove they get Leeds.” Who is Peter Lowy? Some Leeds fans might not be familiar with this name but Lowy joined the Elland Road board back in May before the 2020/21 Premier League season came to a close. The Australian businessman was in attendance at Elland Road when we beat West Brom on the final day of the last campaign and he seems as though his presence at the club is good news. Lowy is the Westfield shopping centre magnate and is among the richest people in Australia He and Marathe have a lot of money and power behind them. Radrizzani does too, but the Italian businessman is likely to have his limits and his decision to slowly sell off his shares at Leeds is telling. Could we see Marathe and Lowy be the main duo behind the scenes at Elland Road in the coming years? Or even the coming months?If that does happen, we’d be happy that it’s been a slow bedding-in process and not a total takeover out of the blue. Marathe and Lowy will be learning constantly and that could really help when the day comes for Radrizzani to cash in his chips. Lowy is also a real long time Leeds fan too and has followed Leeds around many times over the years. From Keiron Maguire the football finances guru: Andrea Radrizzani is unlikely to be able to fund the expansion of Elland Road and needs the help of Leeds United shareholder Paraag Marathe, according to Kieran Maguire. Last week, the San Francisco 49ers increased their stake in Leeds to 44 per cent. Football finance expert Maguire believes that the NFL franchise feel as though Leeds are not making the most of their commercial potential and they may also be able to help out with plans to expand Elland Road to be a 60,000-seater stadium. “Radrizzani, the majority Leeds share owner, he’s not given any indication that he is planning to sell the club to the 49ers at a later date but certainly they are in a very strong position should he choose to do so,” said Maguire. “Leeds have spoken about expanding Elland Road to 50,000-60,000 capacity – that is going to cost money.“I don’t think Radrizzani has those resources himself whereas the 49ers are more likely to be able to tap into American markets for that so you can see the logic of what they’ve done.“They feel that Leeds, as a club, are not generating enough commercial income given the size of the club and the potential of the club.”Commercial success, It’s hard to believe that Leeds could do more in terms of the commercial side of the business. After we won promotion back to the Premier League, you would assume that there would have been a massive financial boom in that sector. However, the impact of COVID-19 and potentially Radrizzani’s lack of expertise in that area could have come into play. If the 49ers feel as though they can do better then so be it and we welcome their involvement to try and generate more income at Elland Road. If the stadium is going to be expanded, then considerable money is going to be needed to go into the club. Will Radrizzani end up giving over his majority ownership to the 49ers? It’s likely, based on the way Marathe has slowly increased his stake at the Yorkshire outfit. We just hope that if that does happen, the Italian stays on the board and has some say in what happens. Companies House records show a cash injection of £53.9m has gone into the club in conjunction with new shares to the 49ers and thats on top of the £47m injected last season when the 49ers increased their shareholding to 37% it now stands at 44% with Radz and his company Aser owning 56%. Remember Radz said last week that the value of the club now stands at £400m? Lots of problems with club owners as we have seen this week with Mel Morris at Derby and why they deserve punishment. We have also seen Rangers who are heavily in debt have to sell their manager that won the league for them without losing a game. They ended up getting the fee of £4.5m from Villa. We also saw a billionaire Croatian buy 27% of WHU from the bent porn kings. Lets not forget that Villa also have an outstanding cheat charge waiting for them by the EFL because in the season we came 4th both Villa and Derby in the play off final were both under investigation. Villa so far have got away with it due to promotion but the fact is that they broke FFFP rules and the Prem should have by now punished them, but haven't because of Covid But back to sensible stuff, Could the real reason the 49ers want Leeds, is to enhance football revenues from TV Rights, and my belief it is, and Leeds with a worldwide following in the millions would make much more cash going it alone, but also if the Premier League had their own TV Broadcast platform like F1 or the NFL, NBA, NBL etc it would make a mint and the 49ers know how to do it. Fenway Sports Group (Liverpool owners) also know how to do it Obviously big nose at Man Utd also owns USA sports teams and knows how to do it, so watch this space The above tweet refers to 3 USA platforms bidding for TV rights already and thats just to add to the usual BT Sport, Sky and now have Amazon and a couple more, so TV money in the Prem will only get bigger, before they actually bite the bullet and do it themselves or allow each club to do their own thing. Cant wait for the likes of Norwich, BHA, Burnley to see their regular 150 worldwide fans bringing in around £80 a year whilst we bring in multi-millions
We have all heard about bad football club owners and we evn had one who was No1 in the rogues gallery, Ken Bates. But some others you will have heard about: Allam at Hull City who raped the parachute money and told the fans to fook off as they’re all scum. He is till emptying his ground. Duchatelet at Charlton, the man who shafted Lee Boyer after he got yhem promoted to the Championship so Lee did one and took over at Birmingham City leaving the shytshow behind. Sisu at Coventry have relocated from their home twice under this bandit and the ling suffering sky blue fans detest the man Lemsagram at Oldham is a complete fruit loop, fans hate him, locals hate him and he isnt fit to own a club Glazer what can I say, taken billions out of the club and bought the club with debt and repays the interest out of club profits leaving the debt still to be repaid by someone at some stage. This practice should be illegal Plenty more bandits have been in charge like the one at York City who was the only owner not to sign up to “Kick it out”. The prat who hated us at Donny Rovers, the bent property developer at Gillingham who sold the stadium to Tesco and conned the council into buying him a new ground. This twat was also one who insisted -15 points wasnt enough. Mansfield Town owner and his blonde model squeeze who is now CEO, but well doable. Carlisle Utd are now in trouble due to shyt ownership and so too was Kidderminster Harriers. Liverpool have Fenway Sports Group now who aren't brilliant but the bent twats Gillette and whoever were worse. The main problems now come from Chinese ownership
Great read Doc, it amazes me where you get all your information from, I look forward to the weekend blog just same as ELL’s during the week, keep it going guys
You cannot make this shyt up but Steve Morison has been named the new Cardiff manager he cant be worse than e was as a striker, can he?
Fantastic Doc!! Excellent read, superb info ... personally, I really rate Radz, he's kept to his plan and he's ensuring that when 49ers do eventually buy him out, they're properly embedded in Leeds with a concrete strategy in place to fund thank fk we didn't get Mel Morris, that twat still doesn't know how he got rich, but he's fkn good at squandering it as for that model CEO at Mansfield, "well doable" cracked me up no end!!
The guy Lowy I mentioned in the OP is one to keep your eye on. He will be in charge of the stadium extension and build plus design concept. It was his idea to build on top of the fans so we dont lose any revenue whilst building. One section at a time will be developed and when a game is on work will stop until its over and then building carries on. Lowy actually knows Ken Bates because it was his company that had to bail Bates out and take over the new Wembley development. The Lowy family are the 4th richest in Australia and when you think that the first 3 own mining, coal, aluminium, copper, gold, petro chemicals and diamond mines you can see the wealth. Lowy may even be the new CEO because he will have funds invested in the club alongside the 49ers and I cannot see any if the 49ers basing themselves in Leeds? May be wrong, but Lowy has business interests in the UK
Lowy, principle of the Lowy Family Group private investment business and formerly the CEO of the Westfield Group, is joined at the Elland Road boardroom table by Massimo Marinelli and Sandro Mencucci. A lifelong Leeds supporter, Lowy is said by the club to be a 'significant investor' in the 49ers Enterprises investment vehicle. Currently living in Los Angeles, Lowy has served as the chairman of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and is a director at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and the RAND Corporation. The Lowy family fund is worth almost £6bn thats six thousand million quid!
Another of our loan players doing the biz as Alfie McCalmont scored 2 for NI U21s in a 4-0 win and qualification
Peter Lowy's father was football mad and is credited with re-establishing football in Australia and invested millions in trying to get the 2022 world cup here. We all know what happened with that one.
Come January there is going to be some serious transfer activity at Spurs, Watford, Villa and Norwich for starters. So we will see some fee inflation as sellers realise they can shaft the buying club. Even if Forshaw shapes up as fully fit we are still missing a new AM/CM so wonder if Orta is going to do what we all know needs doing?
Agree it's what we need, but January? Ideally it should have been last summer, as we haven't been successful bringing recruits in during the mid season window. I think we will be running with what we have until next summer, any of the U23's able to step up, Bate?
Bielsa loves young Bate and hes now been promoted to England U20s and doing well and he was on ghe bench last week for the first team. He impresses Bielsa every time he plays so maybe an outside chance of him being promoted next season. We have Ayling (Drameh) Cooper (Cresswell) Dallas ( ) Klich (Bate) all over 30 plus we also have Forshaw over 30, so for me we still need a top Midfielder but we may just have some gems in the 23s pushing to step up. Drameh Summerville, Gelhardt, Cresswell and even Greenwood have all stepped up and taken their chances and just think how much money we could be saving if yhese make it and obviously Lewis Bate too
Add newcastle to that list, they wont fall foul of FFP either. Relegation can not be an option for either radz or the 49ers, so if needs must splash the cash, even if the jan market is overpriced.
And if we are looking at a Midfielder to sign during the mid-season window I find Ross Barkley on the click bait sites, really?
Llorente, Koch, Raphinha, Meslier - We were not linked with any, I didn’t hear of any rumours or other teams after them, as long as we are in the PL we have far more pulling power than Watford, Norwich possibly Villa who have already spent big. If we want someone for the right price I believe we’ll get them
