Mark Bursa wrote:
> The difference with Leicester is the club went into receivership,
thus wiping out its debts, and with no points penalty. The situation was so
bad at Leeds that liquidation, not just receivership was likely.
Leeds United PLC was the bankrupt entity, both Leeds United AFC and Leeds
United Stadium Ltd would have been saleable assets in a liquidation of the
PLC and would therefore have had a value. That was the worst case scenario
in which a fan led buy out would have been necessary. Anyone with anymore
money than the fans had, which in effect is any money, was a better option
than common man fans throwing their hard earned into a bottom less pit.
> I don't believe anybody (rich "fans" etc) would have been prepared
to get involved with a club that owed so much money in
> "football debts" - ie money that has to be paid. Any investment would have
simply gone to the bank accounts of Duberry, Johnson,
> Fowler, Mills etc.
An obstacle all involved were only too well aware of, one multi millionaire
even said that if we could have gotten just Seth Johnson off the wage bill
he would have been interested. However, we were still a premiership club at
the time and the wages although now recognised as high were no more
ridiculous then than West Ham paying Lucas Neill in excess of £50K a week
now, the cashflow had we stayed up could have coped with the wage bill.
> The comments about "stages" of recovery that both Steve and Rick
make are correct. The turnaround was always going to take time -
> basically the time it took to work through the old Ridsdale-era debts.
People will start looking at us again after the end of the
> season...
> The only reason people are now starting to panic is that we're
teetering on the brink of a second relegation, which never looked > likely
in the first two seasons post-relegation.
> I don't believe a fans takeover would have worked two years ago.
The fans 'takeover' was always as a last resort if no better option came
along, as I said above anyone with any money was a better option. However,
we were always aware, though, that the kransortium were no better equipped
than the fans and thus, their choice of advisor made them a worse option.
Had the fans taken over we would probably still have been relegated, we
would still have sold our best players for nothing or less just to get them
off the books and, barring some miracle, we would probably have sold ER on a
sale and leaseback. However it was possible that for about £10M the
bondholders would have gone away had they been hard balled - which Krasner
didn't play too well. In that scenario, the fans may well have been able to
give some sort of footballing control to a rich businessman looking for a
plaything - Sainsbury, Parkin, Stubbs etc for stage 2 before the sale of ER
was necessary.
> It might work in 18 months' time. But Bates' strategy deserves
> time to work through IMO.
There seems little point now that the club is in private ownership, Bates
and the Forward Sports Fund aren't about to philanthropically hand control
to the fans and their asking price will be way out of the fans reach since
the rights issue and the revaluation of the buy back option.
Cheers
Paul
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'I am in shock,' said Ferguson.
