justvisiting
New Member
Hello, Leeds fan here although I've been living near Coventry for a while and like to keep up with how they're doing. It's always sad to see proper fans put through the wringer by incompetent/predatory owners but then Leeds have had 8 years of it so I thought I'd give you an idea of what you might be in for. Not saying the circumstances are exactly the same, you can make your own mind up about that.
Ken Bates took charge of Leeds in 2005, and between then and early this year when he sold up, we had 2 administrations, the selling of any decent players, a torrent of lies and a business administration that is actually legally unfathomable. Everything was owned by offshore trusts whose owners remained anonymous and we didn't even know who owned the club for the majority of those 8 years. We still don't know who owns the ground and training facilities but an awful lot of people in the city think that they're still owned by Bates. We're certainly paying a fortune for the rent.
He was a wiz at justifying his leadership, can't go back to the dark days of Ridsdale, building for the future, etc. but any money that came in went on vanity building projects and court costs for his frequent libel cases. We were “building an entertainment complex” just like happened, and failed, at Chelsea Village. His interpersonal skills seemed non-existent and he must have upset or insulted the council, the police, the local press and pretty much everyone in West Yorkshire at some point or another. He actively seemed to enjoy goading anyone who disagreed with him on pretty much any subject.
I wish we'd have had the sort of stand made by thousands of Coventry fans at the weekend, that was great. On online forums and in pubs we had people making excuses for the old oxygen thief. “He saved the club”, “he's a businessman and knows what it takes to succeed in business”, “the club will benefit in the long run”. All rubbish. What actually happened was that the neglect of the playing squad resulted in a lack of success and sustained poor football that gradually sapped the hope out of the fans. People found other ways to spend their money and it became apparent that the decline in attendances would only be stopped by investment of the kind that Bates wasn't prepared to make. He's the kind who'd prefer to milk a steady £2m a year out of a club rather than gamble £20m on making it to the big money of the Premier League. At no point did he ever put a penny of his own money into the club, he bought it with funny money from the balance sheets of overseas investment companies.
He sold the actual club to a Middle Eastern finance house with no real money of its own but we've already seen an upturn in fortunes. We've got a decent manager and have just bought a player for a million quid for the first time in 8 years. We've not sold any of our few bankable players either. Good times. Simply by not spending our income on executive boxes, vanity radio stations or ill-advised catering facilities we've boosted our team spending enough to make a difference. People who didn't want to give money to Bates are gradually coming back and buying tickets and merchandise.
Some people said we should support the club to give it a better chance of making it successful so he'd have more incentive to sell but whenever any money came in it went straight back out on an unnecessary building project or maybe, possibly, allegedly, via a string of offshore tax havens to a Monaco bank account. The only thing that shifted him was not being able to find any way of screwing any more money out of the fans of Leeds United. I wish we'd got to that point a lot sooner than we did.
All the best for the worrying times you've got ahead of you. I hope some day soon you're owned by someone who wants your club to be a success.
Ken Bates took charge of Leeds in 2005, and between then and early this year when he sold up, we had 2 administrations, the selling of any decent players, a torrent of lies and a business administration that is actually legally unfathomable. Everything was owned by offshore trusts whose owners remained anonymous and we didn't even know who owned the club for the majority of those 8 years. We still don't know who owns the ground and training facilities but an awful lot of people in the city think that they're still owned by Bates. We're certainly paying a fortune for the rent.
He was a wiz at justifying his leadership, can't go back to the dark days of Ridsdale, building for the future, etc. but any money that came in went on vanity building projects and court costs for his frequent libel cases. We were “building an entertainment complex” just like happened, and failed, at Chelsea Village. His interpersonal skills seemed non-existent and he must have upset or insulted the council, the police, the local press and pretty much everyone in West Yorkshire at some point or another. He actively seemed to enjoy goading anyone who disagreed with him on pretty much any subject.
I wish we'd have had the sort of stand made by thousands of Coventry fans at the weekend, that was great. On online forums and in pubs we had people making excuses for the old oxygen thief. “He saved the club”, “he's a businessman and knows what it takes to succeed in business”, “the club will benefit in the long run”. All rubbish. What actually happened was that the neglect of the playing squad resulted in a lack of success and sustained poor football that gradually sapped the hope out of the fans. People found other ways to spend their money and it became apparent that the decline in attendances would only be stopped by investment of the kind that Bates wasn't prepared to make. He's the kind who'd prefer to milk a steady £2m a year out of a club rather than gamble £20m on making it to the big money of the Premier League. At no point did he ever put a penny of his own money into the club, he bought it with funny money from the balance sheets of overseas investment companies.
He sold the actual club to a Middle Eastern finance house with no real money of its own but we've already seen an upturn in fortunes. We've got a decent manager and have just bought a player for a million quid for the first time in 8 years. We've not sold any of our few bankable players either. Good times. Simply by not spending our income on executive boxes, vanity radio stations or ill-advised catering facilities we've boosted our team spending enough to make a difference. People who didn't want to give money to Bates are gradually coming back and buying tickets and merchandise.
Some people said we should support the club to give it a better chance of making it successful so he'd have more incentive to sell but whenever any money came in it went straight back out on an unnecessary building project or maybe, possibly, allegedly, via a string of offshore tax havens to a Monaco bank account. The only thing that shifted him was not being able to find any way of screwing any more money out of the fans of Leeds United. I wish we'd got to that point a lot sooner than we did.
All the best for the worrying times you've got ahead of you. I hope some day soon you're owned by someone who wants your club to be a success.
