When I think back over the last couple of years I have posted hundreds of attacks on one Ken Bates, and with everything good that seems to be happening at Leeds Utd these days I have nothing to kick off about. So I thought I would post a potted history into the so-called business genius known as Ken Bates. To many, many others he is a scumbag criminal who got away with murder. 1969. After 1 year of the British Virgin Islands project locals complained of Bates's âvulgar behaviorâ, especially local female politicians. After a local town flooded, allegedly as a direct result of the land reclamation, locals threatened violence against Bates's âcavalier attitudeâ. ⢠1970. Concerned about Bates's continued presence in the area and the level of civil unrest, the British Government intervened. Bates says he wants $10 million to go âor I'll get meanâ. ⢠21st April 1974. Bates accepts $5.8 million from the British Government to leave the island. âIt's grossly unfair,â says Bates who pays all the creditors, but fails to earn his anticipated fortune. ⢠Bates moves to Dublin, Ireland and now opens his own bank â Irish Trust Bank. The bank is focused on small savers in Ireland and attracts 1,400 savers in it's first year of operation (including George Best and Bobby Charlton) ⢠1971. Bates's bank advances a large sum to International Trust Group which also, curiously, owns 20 per cent of the bank itself. ⢠17th April 1972. Following concerns from the Irish Central Bank, Bates resigns as a director to be replaced by Freddie Pye (a former wrestler, scrap merchant and Chairman of Stockport County.) Pye metals immediately secures a loan of £200,000 from the bank. ⢠1974. Bates meets John Papi, a Kuwati, employed by Stoy Ayward as an insolvency expert. Acting on advice from Papi, Bates took over Kemp Directories for £1 (earned Bates over £1 million)and Owen Press also for £1. ⢠1975. Irish Trust Bank is in difficulties. The Irish Central Bank cites too many loansn to annonymous offshore entities. These loans were not being repaid. Bates, even though he is not officially a shareholder or Director fights a court action to revoke the bank's license. From 75 onwards there are plenty of other scams he managed to get away from, including the US Government sending the FBI after him because he bought a quarry and then made all the staff redundant even though he had been given millions in grants to grow the business. he shut it down and flogged everything and walked away a rich man. Can't wait for the book of his life story to come out (Probably by David Conn) but will only happen once he dies due to legal litigation. Saviour my arse
He can try but that first list was taken straight from a BBC publication about him, which was done back in 2002. He's done a lot more robbing since then (14 years more) Even Caroline his good lady wife bought him a onesy with **** embroidered on the front
You know one thing though, for all the bad GFH did, and it was mainly bad, bent, illegal or whatever, they managed to get Bates out when nobody else could be bothered. For that one thing, I will always be thankful to GFH. For everything else, forget about it. Thanks to the hardship of the past decade, Leeds fans have a special bond, probably stronger than any other club.
TC we never made a profit when bates was in charge!! If you take out player dealings we were always running at a loss. This shows why he loved selling our better players and he also took out around £25m in consultancy fees which were paid out into offshore shell companies that he owned. These shell companies invoiced the club for consultancy and he paid them - all legal and above board but no ethics and no auditer asking to see what consultancy work was done
Officially for tax purposes we made a loss, in reality we weren't it was Bates cyphoning the money away through other interests? At the end of the day Bates had no feelings for LUFC we were a vessel for him to swell his bank account, something he did very well.
