The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Wednesday 10th September)

Good Morning. It's Wednesday 10th September, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road

Who will Farke choose between the sticks after Perri injury

Leeds United's deepening injury worries has taken another hit with the revelation that first-choice goalkeeper Lucas Perri has sustained an injury during training. This latest setback for Daniel Farke means the 27-year-old Brazilian, who has kept two clean sheets this season, will now be sidelined, though the full extent of his injury is yet to be disclosed.

He come under heavy criticism from fans after Leeds were comprehensively thrashed 5-0 by Arsenal at the Emirates last month, a performance that raised questions about his performance, but looked assured against Newcastle, making several good saves.

With Perri now unavailable, Farke is forced to reassess his goalkeeping options, a predicament made more complex by recent form. Karl Darlow, promoted to No 2 this summer, endured a calamitous moment in the Carabao Cup against Sheffield Wednesday, a mistake that will undoubtedly weigh heavily on Farke's decision-making.

This unfortunate turn of events may open the door for Illan Meslier to be welcomed back into the fold. The former French U21 International could be handed an unexpected opportunity to prove his worth. Farke's choice between Darlow and Meslier will be critical against a Fulham team with something to prove, having not won in their opening three games.

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Leeds will need something from trip to Craven Cottage

Leeds United’s Premier League campaign is shaping up to be a relentless battle for survival, and their upcoming trip to Craven Cottage against Fulham this weekend has quickly escalated into a pivotal encounter. Given the formidable opposition they face throughout the season, securing points from teams perceived to be within their reach is non-negotiable if they are to avoid the drop.

The 49ers have set Daniel Farke the challenging task of accumulating 38 points this season, a feat that necessitates a ruthless approach against the weakest teams in the top flight. Unfortunately for Fulham, their recent form and lack of transfer activity, places them squarely in that crucial category for Leeds.

Marco Silva’s Cottagers are yet to register a win in their opening three games, despite showing flashes of promise. They earned creditable draws against Manchester United and Brighton, displaying resilience that suggests they are no pushovers. Their defeat to Chelsea, a result they can feel genuinely aggrieved by, also indicates a team capable of competing.

However, Fulham’s summer spending has been modest, with only around £40m invested, primarily on Shakhtar’s Kevin, alongside securing AC Milan’s Samuel Chukwueze on a season-long loan. This relatively conservative outlay could suggest a squad that might struggle for depth and consistent quality over a demanding Premier League season.

Despite his last gasp equaliser against the Seagulls, star man Rodrigo Muniz has been quiet so far this season. According to stats on 'Whoscored.com', the Brazilian ace is only ranked 12th in their roster, on a lowly 6.15 rating. The Leeds defence will need to be alert in order to keep him quiet!

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Morning all

Darlow and hopefully our defence will limit the amount of shots he has to face. We just need someone competent who won't gift the opposition a goal, this isn't the time to put Meslier in when he was surplus to requirements and couldn't get a move away

Over the three games so far, I don't think there is a lot to choose between Darlow and Perri, not £18m worth of difference that's for sure

 

Leeds investment pitch analysed: £1bn future valuation and recruitment system
By Matt Slater
Sept. 10, 2025 5:20 am

My wife has a theory that I only pretended to watch American teen drama The OC when we were going out in the noughties, so she would think we liked the same things. I point out that she has not seen Southend United play since we got married.

In a sense, we were marketing ourselves — or putting our best foot forward. We all do it.

Leeds United’s owner has been carrying out its own marketing recently in an attempt to persuade investors to give it £120million ($162m) “to fund business operations, carry out the stadium expansion project and enable the club to bring in £300million worth of players over the next three years”.

Some of you will be asking how it hopes to achieve that much bang for its bucks. Others will be wondering where/when 49ers Enterprises said all that.

The answer to the second question is that the American sports investment firm wrote it in the “2025 Investment Summary” 50-slide pitch deck sent to interested parties this summer, copies of which found their way to us and football website TBR. More interestingly, 49ers Enterprises also claimed last season’s Championship winners are worth £527.45million now, but should be worth £1billion in 2030.

And the answer to the first question is explained in the 50-slide deck, which has been leaked. Here, The Athletic explains the contents of the presentation.

‘Our track record’

When 49ers Enterprises first bought 15 per cent of Leeds in 2018, there was some confusion as to who had just invested. While the firm is closely linked to the principal owners of the San Francisco 49ers, the York family, it is not quite true to say the Yorks own Leeds, too.

The best way to think of 49ers Enterprises is to see it as a private equity firm they set up to invest in other sports assets with other rich folk. 49ers Enterprises is the lead investor in an even wider group of rich folk who have bought Leeds.

But even with those caveats, any discussion of the firm’s credentials begins with the NFL team, which was valued at $8.6billion (£6.4bn) this year when three local families joined the Yorks in the owners’ suite.

The Leeds deck points out that the 49ers moved to a new home, the 68,500-seat Levi’s Stadium, in 2014. It has the second-highest ticket revenue in the league. It has already hosted one Super Bowl in 2016 and is staging the next one in February, as well as six games at next year’s World Cup. The message is clear: we do stadiums.

The next slide is about “value creation”, with a headline claim that 49ers Enterprises has “created over $1billion of enterprise value” since it was set up in 2015. It claims its advisory work for NWSL expansion team Bay FC and the U.S.-based Major League Cricket has realised $150million in value, while Elevate Sports Ventures, its joint venture with Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment and Oak View Group, is now worth more than $500million.

In terms of Leeds, it says it originally invested £75million and that is now worth more than £500m. It does not mention the large sums the ownership syndicate has needed to pump into the club over the last seven years, including the £120m it is seeking with this sales pitch.

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The next slide is all about “brand uplift and operational expertise”, with a reference to the combined audiences of the 49ers, Leeds and Major League Cricket equalling “exponential” growth in the club’s “addressable market”.

We then move on to the leadership team, with a particular focus on the 2023 hires of first-team manager Daniel Farke, chief operating officer Morrie Eisenberg, chief strategy officer Robbie Evans and technical director Gretar Steinsson, who they poached from Tottenham Hotspur, and the 2025 addition of former Premier League chairman Peter McCormick, who joined as executive vice-chairman last year.

This leads to five examples of commercial growth between “the last time the club was in the EFL (English Football League)” in 2020 and last season’s promotion campaign. Leeds’ “digital footprint” has grown by 40 per cent, likewise its ticketing revenue, with retail income up 50 per cent and premium hospitality more than doubled.

But the real upside is from sponsorship, largely thanks to energy-drink giant Red Bull becoming a minority partner and putting its logo on the front of Leeds’ shirts. The deal is worth seven times the previous EFL record and more than double what Leeds were earning the last time they were in the Premier League.

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We then get five slides on player recruitment. The message here is Leeds have a proper plan. The owner group sets a budget, the football leadership establishes “non-negotiable” technical and physical criteria, and the data team refines the search for the scouts to do the eye test.

“We never fall in love with one player and are strict in our process — all inbound players will have a projected exit value,” they promise, before stating the goal of becoming a “top-five English ‘data club’ in 2025”.

With this in mind, they have expanded their “player footprint” from 40 to more than 100 competitions and are now grading players on multiple “sub-metric levels”, including, for example, finishing with headers from set pieces, which would explain all the big lads.

Has it worked? Hell, yes.

“Severely compromised” by the EFL’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) last season, the club was forced to sell £120million worth of talent, including Archie Gray and Georginio Rutter, replacing them with £27m of new players. They still finished first.

Investment opportunity

Having set out its case for being nice people to do business with, 49ers Enterprises moves on to the important bit: how much money everyone will make.

“By the end of our three-year business plan, our objective is to increase Leeds’ year-end 2028-29 revenue to £300m+,” a slide says, before explaining that clubs with annual revenues of that magnitude historically trade at a revenue multiple of 3x-to-4x. In other words, stick with us because we are going to be worth more than £1billion in four years.

To prove that point, the slide has a graph showing the valuations for 12 teams from last season’s Premier League in one column, with their annual revenues in another column. And alongside these columns is a number for each club that represents the multiple used to get from the revenue to the value column, with Chelsea at one end of the graph (an 8.5x multiple) and Bournemouth at the other (1.0x).

The average multiple for “mid-to-low-tier clubs” is 2.2x, which is where 49ers Enterprises believes Leeds should be, thanks to their “rich history, strong commercial revenue and recent promotion” — a claim that is hard to argue with… providing Leeds stay up.

To emphasise this point, there is another slide that looks at seven recent transactions involving clubs in their peer group: the full or partial takeovers at Everton, Crystal Palace, West Ham United, Newcastle United, Bournemouth, Burnley and Ipswich Town, which were valued in a range from one to three and a half times their annual revenues.

We then get a couple of slides that work backwards from the amounts of money Leeds’ owners have already invested, plus the club’s debts, to show what the club’s total enterprise value was in 2023, when they bought out Andrea Radrizzani, and now, after the £120million capital raise is factored in. These fancy bits of accountancy show that Leeds’ enterprise value (equity plus net debt) was £565.45million in 2023 but is now £647.45million.

If you are thinking, “Hold on, that is only £82million more, despite £120m going in”, well spotted. But there is an explanation.

“In our 2023 deal, we had a fully funded and executed deal to take over the club,” the deck says. “That deal included £257m in existing player obligations locked in (for) players who ultimately would get relegated and void our deal. Now, these obligations have been reduced to £140m and are tied to a refreshed squad built for promotion, featuring a young core with significant upside.”

The real point here is that the £120million will be spent on new players and home improvements, not old commitments.

And to underline how far Leeds and the 49ers have come since 2023, the next slides list all the improvements made under American owners: more data, better contracts, a younger team, transfer profits, proven leaders, the Red Bull deal and a projected 25 per cent increase in annual revenue since the 2022-23 campaign.


For the accountants out there, the owners believe Leeds will bring in £262million this season, which would have been good enough for 19th place in the 2025 edition of Deloitte’s Money League, just below Aston Villa but ahead of the second- and third-richest clubs in France (Marseille and Lyon).

This section of the deck ends with another graph of “comparable transactions” and the claim “if you apply the average revenue multiple of 2.2x that recent low- and mid-tier EPL clubs were sold for to Leeds’ projected revenue for 25-26, Leeds would be valued at £576million”.

Growth strategy

Every investment desk The Athletic has ever seen has a slide about “strategic pillars”, and this one has three that can be paraphrased as such: start acting like a Premier League club, stabilise, and become self-sufficient.

In the first pillar, we have all the investment in data and scouts, increasing the academy’s budget to help with player retention (by helping parents with travel expenses, for example) and establishing a “new inner-city academy to reach a demographic with high potential”.

That last idea is particularly interesting. Leeds have a good record in player development, but it could be even better if they had a training base closer to Leeds than Thorp Arch, 15 miles from the city centre.

Becoming a stable Premier League club will be achieved by growing the club’s revenues, via summer tours abroad and “curated retail launches”, making sure Thorp Arch is still fit for purpose, leaning into the multi-club links with Rangers, the 49ers’ new joint venture, and the rest of the Red Bull network, and, most importantly, the redevelopment of Elland Road.

If the club can do that, make some money from the “ancillary real estate” around the ground and “consistently monetise home-grown talent”, Leeds will become self-financing and the owners can “engage in conversations with potential bidders to maximise enterprise value upon exit”.

If that comes as a shock, it shouldn’t. These guys are not doing this to give something back to the city that raised them or to get as close as they can to childhood dreams of being the next Peter Lorimer. No, they expect a return on investment. Private equity firms usually wait about seven years — which could mean an exit around 2030, although there is no reference to this in the deck or by 49ers Enterprises.

We then get six slides that flesh out the strategy. One is about making Leeds “the club of choice for Gen Z”, the cohort born between the late 1990s and early 2010s — those who grew up with social media. The club have more than six million followers across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube, up 43 per cent since 2023.

Another is on the scouting network. At present, Leeds only have scouts on the ground in England and eight European countries, its “primary markets”. The rest of Europe, including Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia, is a “secondary market”, while the Americas and Far East are “screening markets”. However, “as we acquire more clubs, secondary and screening markets (where we periodically conduct surveillance) will become primary markets”.

The slide on the academy development plans is the most revealing in terms of new information, as it outlines the club’s three-pronged approach: replenish, retain and sustain.

The replenishing will be done via a £500,000 annual budget for “filling gaps in the academy pathway” with talented youngsters from local rivals, plus an additional £100,000-a-year scouting budget to find them.

Retainment will be improved by spending £3million on Thorp Arch and ring-fencing £250,000 per year for expenses. And a new £2million inner-city facility will help sustain and “potentially increase” the club’s current output of one “high-value academy product every two years”.

Just to underline why that is a sound investment, there is a table that shows if Leeds can sell an academy player for £22million — half the amount they got for Gray last year — it will cover the cost of four years’ worth of enhanced academy expenditure and leave a profit of £13.6million.

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The club’s plans to develop Elland Road in two phases — West and South Stands first, North Stand second — have been well publicised. But in case you missed it, phase one will take Elland Road’s capacity from 38,000 to 47,000, with £7.6million already assigned for design and planning permission costs, and construction scheduled to start next year. All being well, the expanded West and South Stands will be ready for fans in August 2028.

No date is given for phase two’s start or completion, but it is meant to take the ground’s capacity to 53,000, which would put it among English football’s top 10 in terms of size, adding £30million in “incremental annual revenue” to the club’s turnover. And if you assume that the Premier League is going to settle on a squad-cost ratio of 85 per cent when it gets around to replacing its PSR, that is an extra £25million a year to spend on players.

This section finishes with two graphs showing how Brighton and Brentford have used data and player-trading to “consistently operate profitably… we aim to use a similar approach”, although Leeds think they can get there even quicker, thanks to their greater commercial revenue and larger fanbase.

Financials

The final chapter comprises four slides: “base case” and “low case” scenarios for cash flow and player spend.

If we tackle the “base case” first, as mentioned, Leeds earned £141million in the Championship last season and are forecast to make £262m this season, rising to £271m next season and £273m in 2027-28, but only if they stay up.

The club’s costs last season were £174million, which should rise to £214m this season, £200m next season and £215m the season after — that’s pretty disciplined.

The net transfer spend last season was £13million, with an estimate of £52m for this season, then £56m and then £68m — so, the plan is to spend increasing amounts to cement the club’s Premier League status. And if you add up the annual cashflows for these four seasons, you get a deficit of £118,919,000. In other words, the £120m this deck successfully brought in.

The notes for these numbers point out that ticket prices will rise after promotion, “a conservative 16th-place finish is projected” for this season, followed by back-to-back 15th-place finishes, and the wage bill will remain “near the average for 10th- to 15th-place clubs”. They also estimate that the new Independent Football Regulator (IFR) will cost Leeds £5million.

There is also a reference to the fact that the average Premier League manager’s tenure is 18 months — and therefore “contingencies are in place for periodic new hires”.

The base-case player spend is mapped out in surprising detail, with amounts given for each position. For example, Leeds projected to spend £101million on players this season, comprised of £25m on a striker and £16m on a centre-back, all the way down to £3m on a young goalkeeper and £200,000 for a veteran midfielder on loan.



There are also totals for the next two seasons — £126million and £89m — but no position-by-position breakdowns.

Even more surprisingly, Leeds got very close to hitting these estimated transfer fees this summer. According to Transfermarkt, the club spent just under £100million, spending a little more than intended on midfielders and not enough on strikers.

The low case projections are based on a 17th-place finish this season, the fact that struggling teams rotate coaches more often, including “one or more managerial changes per year”, and the IFR costing £10million. If these calamities unfold, the revenue projections, total costs and net transfer balances will be a little lower, too, with the cumulative cashflow balance being higher, at £161million by the summer of 2028. No pressure, then, Daniel. Or David Kogan.

 

Fulham have played well in tough fixtures, their points tally means nothing they will be firm favourites for this game. We've shown we can be gritty at elland road. We rolled over for Arsenal. The next few games will show us where we're at - away fixtures at sides we should be competing with if we're going to stay up, home fixture against probably the best of the unfashionable sides. Think we'll have a good idea of where we're at in 3 games time.

Keeper. I'm not totally sold on any of them... Darlow has had a few rushes of blood and had that shocker at Sheff Wed, but has more credit in the bank than meslier.

 

interesting read Matt, thanks for sharing

 

I absolutely agree, and they were robbed at Chelsea, but I cannot think of seven other worse teams.

 

Great insight!