The new Leeds United owners seem short of dosh and the manager is short of ideas. Will the coming weeks see Bates back in charge? Hahaha Iâll Be Back I donât suppose youâve a spare twelve million you could buy Leeds United with? And another twenty to fund promotion to the richest football league in the world over the next two years? You donât? No well, join the club, I donât think the current owners do either. If there was a book open on who the next owners of LUFC will be â and right now it could be anyone â Iâd be backing Ken Bates. Unlike some doubters I do believe Ken Bates has actually sold Leeds United to GFH Capital but I also think its highly likely he will have a clause allowing him to resume ownership if they donât make an agreed payment schedule. Bates certainly thinks heâs in with a chance, he doesnât appear to think the new owners know how to run a football business and is probably already looking forward to the day he can buy LUFC back for a pound. Something heâs believed to have already said to them. GFHâs public statement this week inviting more investors certainly sounds as if they are scrabbling around trying to raise cash quickly for something. If it isnât to make a payment to Bates what the hell is the sale of Becchio at a time when his goals could have fired us into the play offs about? If this is the case, any new take over by the reported âYorkshire Consortiumâ wouldnât be injecting significant and much needed cash into the running of the club so much as just giving money owed by GFH to the former owner Bates. More about Leeds United Gary Speed: An Inspiration 92: The Greatest Ever LUFC Reserve Team When it was announced that former Leeds United Commercial Director Adam Pearson was thought be heading up a challenge for the club I was pleased. I worked with Adam in the late 90s and early 00′s at the club when we were building the Leeds United publishing business and he was a voice of reason in the shadow of the publicity crazed figure above him. One time I was on a train on the way to a hospital to be treated for concussion and Adam called me and told me heâd been asked by Publicity Pete to not print any more letters like the one from the Wing Commander in that issue of LLL. At a time when a lot of fans were saying we were buying too many strikers and over-loading the squad â how right they were â The Wing Commander delivered a huge rant saying Ridsdale should be buying MORE! A new striker a week was what he was demanding. From the triple barrel Monty Python style name to the totally stupid tone and theme of the letter it was obvious to everyone it was a joke but Adam had the misfortune to have been told to call me and get us to cut it out. Itâs fair to say that even with a cracked head from a dive into the shallow end of a swimming pool I was making more sense of the world than Publicity Pete. That Pearson chose to leave Leeds when we were flying high in Europe to take over then lowly Hull City spoke volumes of his opinion of what was going on internally at Elland Road. The day he announced he was buying Hull with long time Leeds United supporter Peter Wilkinson backing him, I called and wished him all the best and thanked him for helping publish Leeds Leeds Leeds magazine. An absolute nightmare In the background Ridsdale was cracking jokes about Tony The Tiger and wanting to know why I hadnât quoted him in a front cover profile of Rio Ferdinand, then Leeds centre back, for The Times magazine two days before. That summed the state of the club up. One sensible management figure was leaving to explore a decent opportunity â take Hull City to the Premiership in a few years â the other was looking for his name in the lifestyle section of a newspaper. The two clubs crossed paths as Hull City climbed and Leeds crashed and burned. Even now they sit above us in the Championship. I often think of Ridsdale when I see new owner David Haighâs twitter feed. Open dialogue with fans is one thing but thereâs been an awful lot of time spent in the digital spotlight for David given we havenât done anything yet. Pete was big on talking to the fans too if you remember rightly. My only hope is that if Adam Pearson is building a take-over for LUFC he is doing so backed by Wilkinson, the successful technology entrepreneur, and not the guys who Bates has been knocking back and mocking for the last few years. Passionate local businessmen with strong regional businesses is one thing, but if they havenât had enough money for Bates to take advantage of, in the way he got Matthew Harding to help prop up Chelsea, you have to wonder if thereâs enough money in the pot to sustain a serious championship promotion challenge. In football cash flow you can go through millions like most of us get through twenties. Pearsons experience at Leeds, Hull City, Derby and Hull FC is exactly the type needed to steer the club to where the fans want to be but he will only be giving himself half a chance if he hasnât a good £30mil behind him. Last summer I suggested to Simon Moran, the successful music promoter (Take That, Stone Roses) and owner of Warrington Wolves that he should buy Leeds and he just shuddered and said âNo way, Iâve read Simon Jordanâs bookâ. Apart from Crystal Palace and Blackpool I donât think any club have sneaked into the Premiership on a lowly budget and they were both lead by charimastic and hungry managers, not a post-match interview showboating old boy on the verge of retirement. And there are just too many good managers in the top half of the Championship to allow Leeds an easy ride up. Right now many fans want Warnock out but he wonât walk and I canât see GFH paying him off so close to the end of his contract. Right now heâs their only hope of a last minute scramble into the Play Offs. If Pearson is fronting for Wilkinson again I would buy two new season tickets for next season instantly. Only they will know whether the money that bought Hull will be the same money that can buy and save Leeds. If its a slight possibility Iâd urge Wilkinson to invest and stand well back. At least Pearson will know what heâs doing in running the football club which is more can can be said at the moment. if GFH knew what they were doing they wouldnât have retained the old board, a move which has failed to impress fans who were sick of the Bates era. Whether Wilkinson will invest is another matter. He is certainly a Leeds United fan of longstanding. I used to sit near him and wonder who this guy who looked like a cross between Nick Cave and a lecturer was. And whilst it is the dream of many fans who canât afford it to own the club, the reality for those who can and do is often a terrible experience. Last summer I suggested to Simon Moran, the successful music promoter (Take That, Stone Roses) and owner of Warrington Wolves that he should buy Leeds and he just shuddered and said âNo way, Iâve read Simon Jordanâs bookâ. And there-in lies the rub. Football is like no other business. Peter Wilkinson is a very private man and wouldnât want the attention. And Bates doesnât give a **** about being liked and leading a club or a community, he just wanted to make money and rub peopleâs noses in it. Bates could have presided over a successful ten years at Elland Road but instead thousands of fans consider him nothing more than scum. Iâm yet to meet a group of Leeds fans where the majority think GFH either have the money or the understanding to run the club. We just have to hope that a knight in Super White shining armour or a very private technology figure with a genuine lifelong love of Leeds can bring himself to save the club at a time when we appear to be dangerously teetering on the verge of financial disaster again. Warnock Poster Image from Guardianâs Gallery selection by Kevin OâRiordan The Football Revolution Starts At Closing Time by James Brown IF YOU LIKE IT, PASS IT ON Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest COMMENTS No comments yet, be the first! Leave a comment
No smoke without fire is there. I'm hearing that the original middle eastern buyer, who pulled out of the original GFH deal because of Bates, is now back in the frame. Now if this is part of the Adam Pearson group/consortium, then it will happen. If Adam is just trying to assemble the original troops from the failed administration buy out a few years ago, I don't know if they'll have enough clout to invest enough to get promotion. So GFH are deffo looking to sell some or all of the club. Will it be GFH holding the majority shares and the middle east investors cash drving us forward at last. Or will it be Adam and his boys, plus the middle east guy don't know but looks like something will happen soon ..... Again
They have failed to live up to their words from the Presser. Tell us what we want to hear and don't back it up.
Spot on but having dug ourselves out of Risdales hole through administration, Bates has managed to put us back in the same one. Borrowing money for ****e that no one needed. As bad as Risdale was, and I hate the man and what he did, at least large chunks of borrowed money was spent on the playing squadd and we were a great team to watch. Bates is even worse, borrowed and invested in crap, stands he doesnt own, and propping up loss making businesses. We sure have been blessed with chairmen. The next one had better be the real deal
Where's the lack of transparency? GFH have bought the club 100% (and owe nothing to Bates, which instantly discredits this piece) and are looking to bring other investors in. People keep making up bullshit stories and then blaming them on GFH's supposed lack of transparency. They've been very public about the **** Bates has left us in financially and the fact they're looking to bring in investment from the very moment they bought the club, yet people act surprised when they're willing to sell shares in the club to provide financial backing; exactly as they said they would be. People keep accusing GFH of not living up to promises they have in fact never made. Someone saying "I think this is going to happen" just on a hunch, without any evidence, isn't actually proof of anything and should have no influence on people's views about how GFH are running the club.
+1 on that as long as it is aimed at GFH - We don't need to sell any key players, isn't that what GFH promised? Didn't they say they will be backing Warnock in the transfer window, were Habibou and Morison really number one targets, I don't think so... They (GFH) talk the talk then when it comes to the crunch they have about as much money to invest as Bates - Do you actually know what they have purchased then Simon? Brought the club, that is a pretty open ended statement, what does the club consist of, I am assuming they haven't purchased the ground. I am not in the mood for any argument about it, my confidence in GFH is zero, in Warnock it is also zero. http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/196863-Patel-Speaks-(at-last!) was posted 12 hours after I made the comment - While Patel has finally spoken out a little it is still more what we want to hear rather than actions and same old storey, hide behind the confidentiality excuse.
GFH have explained the mess Bates left us in,and are looking for funds to take us forward.Bates was never that honest with us to be fair.
As I see it... GFH are not some rich investor, they are an investment bank who's only purpose to buy LUFC is to make money on us. I haven't a major issue with that, I wish someone better had brought us but they haven't. At the moment GFH are using the how they saved us routine which is total crap, NO investment bank not alone one closely adhering to Sharia'h compliance would risk buying LUFC if they did not believe there was big money to be made. I am not saying they haven't increased working capital but I have no doubt that we were not on the brink of collapse, just using common sense; would an investment bank really buy a football team that was on the verge of going under? GFH are telling us how they have pumped money into the club, they are playing the saviour card at the moment, they are trying to make us fans see how lucky we are that they took control when they did. Again I stress GFH did not purchase us for fun, they have to abide by Sharia'h law and they are using investors money, they have to feel 100% confident that there is money to be made and recovered with a profit. They are not the saviours of Leeds United, they are interim owners here to make a quick profit. Yes I would rather have them than Bates but I am not going to fall for their easily spoken words as they attempt to get crowds back into Elland road without investing in the squad, investing in quality not the shambles we are currently seeing. Becchio sold, Barkley sent back, I don't know how much is down to GFH and what is solely the decision of Warnock hence why I have lost faith in all of them. I along with others called the Barkley signing a smokescreen to hide the departure of Becchio just as Delph was used when Howson was sold. New owners same old crap. Don't forget Patel told us that we could not offer Becchio a better wage because of fair play rules next season, Leeds Utd who has the lowest percentage of income going out on wages in the entire division.
ow I have no doubt's GFH are in it for the money,but for them to get it we need premier league football,just think they will get us there quicker than Bates ever would.Once we get there they will sell us for a profit and we both get what we want hopefully.
Lifecheshirewhite - We will never get promoted to the Premier League under GFH they haven't a clue how to run a club and they certainly won't invest enough - They are going to try the route that Bates went for and failed, an investor. It just isn't going to happen unless it is an investor who buys a controlling stake. I truly hope I am wrong and you are right The squad we have at present has as much chance as the squad we had 12 months ago, zilch. Becchio leaving was the final exit for Warnock to truly call the squad his own, it is the team Warnock built, played 3 and managed 1 point.
To get to the Premiership you need to spend cash and I'm afraid from what I have read, GFH do not have the relevant cash to do that. I wonder if the recent takeover offer could be discussed again, with the new investors being offered 30% of the club at an agreed level, with the other 21% at an agreed price over the next two to five years.
They're too greedy, Norm. They've already stated that they expect to make £150m+ if we get promoted, so don't want to sell.
