More explanation / shameless propaganda from Chairman Bates. £46k a week?!
Bates still focused on grand vision from Leeds Matt Dickinson To most of us, Elland Road sits in a grubby area of Leeds with rows of terraced houses at one end and a motorway at the other. There is a vast expanse of potholed wasteland that serves as a car park. Perhaps only Ken Bates could look around and, with Leeds United second from bottom in the Coca-Cola Championship, see the makings not only of a great football club but a whole new satellite town with a heliport, hotels and smart restaurants. As if saving Leeds was not enough, Bates wants to regenerate a suburb. He is 75, but, as you can gather, forever young. He reveals the breadth of his vision while sitting in his armchair in Monte Carlo, where he lives as a tax exile. He grabs the remote control and flicks through the satellite channels to find Yorkshire Radio. Everything you want to know about Leeds United, he says, looking out over the Mediterranean. A television channel beamed across Europe cannot be far behind. Some Leeds fans have complained that Bates is putting too many resources into these peripheral activities rather than a struggling team and they are hardly likely to be appeased by his vision for hotels and restaurants. The former Chelsea chairman asks one question how else is he going to raise the money required to turn Leeds around? He cites the redevelopment of Stamford Bridge, where, after a protracted struggle to buy the ground, he went on to replace one of the countrys most notorious terraces with the Chelsea Village facilities. There were teething problems, but the hotels remain and Bates claims to have been ahead of his time. I got slaughtered by the press for what we did, but I just led the way, he says. Reading, Oxford, Derby, Coventry, Bolton and, in due course, Hull and Newcastle. They are all doing the same things, developing hotels, exploiting the game the other 340 days a year and not just 25. Fulham Broadway was the a***hole of West London when I arrived and now theres a brand new shopping centre, cafés. I started that. Someone bought the hotels recently (Millennium and Copthorne) and Harry Ramsden took over the restaurant, so they cant be doing badly. But were Chelsea not hugely in debt and on the brink of doing a Leeds when Roman Abramovich made Bates an offer he could not refuse? We owed £90 million, but the club was worth £150-200 million and the players £130 million. So whats the problem? There wasnt one. Look at Chelsea when I took over and when I left. It speaks for itself. His latest challenge is surely his toughest yet, but Leeds is a sizeable one-club city and Bates is convinced that Elland Road can be turned into a home from home not only for supporters but the wider public, with its location just off the motorway, which runs into the heart of town. One snag is that in November 2004 the previous administration sold Elland Road and the training ground for £8 million to Jacob Adler, a Manchester businessman (it was sold again, to British Virgin Islands-based Teak Trading Corporation, last month). It sums up the series of disasters that dragged Leeds close to ruin that it will cost £18.5 million to buy them back. Bates must try to raise the money while also paying for the mistakes of his predecessors. Leeds are weighed down by contracts for more than ten footballers who have departed. Bates lists Eirik Bakke, Seth Johnson, Michael Ricketts, Michael Duberry and even Robbie Fowler among those on the payroll. Gary Kelly remains as the last survivor of the David OLeary days, earning £46,000 a week, which is a Champions League wage at a club fighting relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time. Twelve million pounds over five years, Bates says. I worked out that all the money that Leeds earned getting to the semi-finals of the Champions League was handed to Kelly with his new contract. That is the burden I inherited, but fans forget that very quickly. They just want to know whats going to happen on Saturday. Bates has attracted criticism for making Leeds home to some of the most expensive seats outside London, but he argues that he has to raise money somehow to help Dennis Wise, the new manager, to rebuild the team. To the argument that Bates would be better off dropping prices and trying to widen his audience, his response is typically blunt. Im happy to give that a go if you are willing to underwrite any losses if no more fans come. He is adamant that he has not taken a penny out of the game in 40 years and that the £17 million he received from Abramovich for his shares was new money and therefore not from the pockets of Chelsea supporters. It is a point you can argue, and we do, but he insists that he has taken on Leeds because he loves the game and the challenge. The supporters may be frustrated by the lack of obvious progress, but as Bates prepares to celebrate the second anniversary of his takeover, he might remind them of one thing. On January 21, 2005, their club had creditors at the door and only two days to survive. _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist 'I am in shock,' said Ferguson.
