I am no Bates fan but who else realistically is going to take over the club? With our fanbase there must surely be someone with enough cash to buy the club and invest in the team? But where are they? Or if you were an Arab billionaire with money to burn why wouldn't you go for a 'sleeping giant' like Leeds? Or how about a fan buy-out? 20,000 fans putting up £1000 each would raise £20m - enough to buy the club? I find it profoundly depressing that the best we can currently do is Ken Bates.
How about Lowry (not Shane!) the Australian Billionaire who wanted to invest in the club before Bates publicly criticised him and he pulled out. “I had never heard of [Lowy],” Bates said in an interview with the Yorkshire Radio station. “I know of this story now because someone sent me a printout of an Australian newspaper the report was in but it is the usual rubbish – a source said, somebody claimed, and nobody was available for comment. “This Lowy, I think he runs Westfield, the property company. Aren’t they the one that has completely buggered up the town centre of Bradford? Hardly the best reference for someone who wants to buy a football club 12,000 miles from home. Interestingly he [reportedly] has a Leeds-based agent examining Leeds United – let’s hope it’s not Gerald Krasner.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/footbal...-leeds-united-to-portfolio-20100410-rzpz.html To be fair his Westfield business has done pretty well in places other than Bradford... A $6bn fortune would do us nicely.
Nobody can deal with Bates, especially when they will never see sight of the real books. The cloud of mystery surrounding the club ownership is just the start of the problems, and bates, taylor et all wouldn't dare to open the books to anyone as part of any due dilligence exercise.
Nice thoughts but could you imagine 20,000 fans expressing an opionion as to who should be manager and where the club is going wrong? Anyway, fans used to own the club in the way of shares but they went tits up when Leeds went into receivership. I do wonder though when you see buy outs and investment ploughed into lesser supported teams why Leeds continue to be overlooked or do they?
Ristac - fair point but I presume that you'd have to have a management and executive board, plus a normal club manager set up, ratehr than all 20,000 making a decision. But I know a similar scheme didn't work so well at Ebsfleet. But anything would be better than Bates!!
The major problem is Bates doesn't need to sell his little cash cow, it's a nice steady revenue for him! He'll want a major profit from anyone interested in buying the club and who'll want to hand over a wand to such a person. By the way what ever happened to Sir Don Revies son?
