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How bad is the situation?
Oh, it's bad. On October 28 last year, Leeds announced the biggest ever pre-taxes losses by an English football club - ?49.5m for 2002-2003, leaving the club with a debt of around ?78m - which has steadily risen to an estimated ?83m.
How did this madness come about?
Blame chairman Peter "live the dream" Ridsdale and manager David "my babies" O'Leary - who budgeted their spending on the plan that Leeds would get into the Champions League every year. Under Ridsdale's chairmanship Leeds took out huge loans to buy massively expensive players - Seth Johnson anyone? - and also got involved in an innovative (read crazed) hire-purchase scheme which now makes it impossible for them to offload any of their prohibitively pricey assets like Mark Viduka, Michael Duberry, Eirik Bakke, Dominic Matteo and Danny Mills, and actually make a bean. The scheme also makes it fantastically difficult to cut the wage bill by selling players, as witnessed by Middlesbrough this week when they tried, and failed, to take Viduka off Leeds' hands.
This kind of business sense was mirrored off the pitch too. In October 2001, Ridsdale took a 62% wage rise to ?600,000 a year to become the highest paid boardroom boss in the game. Leeds also frittered, amongst other thousands, ?600,000 a year on a fleet of over 70 company cars, ?70,000 a year on plane hire and ?70,000 to hire an employee who stayed for just six months. There were also some expensive goldfish.
The fans must have been pleased?
All the expense was overlooked for a time, and "Publicity Pete" was popular with supporters and media alike. They finished in the top five of the Premiership every year between 1997-1998 and 2001-02, and swept into the semi-finals of the Uefa and European Cups. Leeds were swaggering like they hadn't since the Revie years. Unfortunately their wage-bill was now matching those of Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool. The clock was ticking.
So where did it all go wrong?
They didn't make the Champions League two years running. Then they lost to Cardiff in the FA Cup and to PSV Eindhoven in the fourth round of the Uefa Cup. O'Leary was sacked. Debts mounted. Terry Venables was appointed but couldn't halt the slide and Leeds' assets (the players) started to go - including Woodgate, who the chairman had said would "never be sold".
Cue Venables' exit, Peter Reid's arrival, and Ridsdale's departure to oversee a new dream in Barnsley.
Professor John McKenzie arrived and tightened the belt, but those trousers continued to slip down. After a 6-1 defeat by Portsmouth last October, Reid went, to be replaced by Eddie Gray. So now Leeds had three ex-managers to pay off, as well as players like Robbie Fowler, even though he had been sold on to Manchester City. The debt is huge... at last, the word administration is mentioned.
So the club was/is doomed?
The Leeds United trailer has careered off track and is currently balancing precariously on the edge of a rocky-looking precipice. There are three ways they can escape plummeting to a very untidy death.
Sell some players
As we said earlier, selling the likes of Mark Viduka won't help, but offloading players like Alan Smith, James Milner or Paul Robinson will pull them closer to solid ground. Spurs made a second bid for Robinson on the final day of the transfer window, but the proposed arrangement - a ?2m down-payment with Robinson loaned back to Leeds until the end of the season - was stymied by Premier League rules.
Find a buyer
Selling Leeds United is no easy task. You don't simply run the risk of losing your money, you all but stand on a Yorkshire hillside and fling ?100 notes into the wind purely for the love of Elland Road. Step up, Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Mubarak Al-Khalifa, a member of the Bahrain royal family and mad Leeds fan - the Arab Ridsdale. He rode up on a white steed hailing himself as their saviour, before disappearing as soon as questions like "So where's the money then?" came up.
The players take a wage cut
Smith, Viduka, DiMatteo and co were shocked when fans called them greedy, after they turned down a 35% wage cut proposed by the board, and which was aimed at getting the club through to the end of the season. Eventually, however, their resolve crumbled in the face of theatrical booing and hissing from life-long Leeds fans and some who were just there for the drama of it all. They haven't quite gone the whole nine yards for the club, but they have agreed to a 25% wage deferral. But fear not for the Viduka family, who should still take home nigh on ?50,000-a-week. Phew.
And the future?
Well, with Leeds edging nearer to that messy end we mentioned earlier (the current standstill agreement runs out on February 28) Elland Road has been a busy place. Yorkshire based businessmen have spent many a midnight hour discussing terms and conditions to buy what could soon be a crippled First Division club. The most likely saviour is a consortium of local businessmen whose public face is Gerald Krasner, a specialist in corporate recovery at Bartfields accountants in Leeds. According to Krasner, they have the takeover funds in place.
However, Ugandan businessman Michael Ezra is also waiting in the wings, thumbing through a wallet full of a purported ?60m in crisp new tenners. And yet for some reason nobody seems to be taking him that seriously, despite an offer to spend ?30m on new players. Ezra claims it is the non-British make-up of his proposed board, and possibly his "lack of technical expertise", which are the problems, rather than lack of funds. In any case, the Yorkshire consortium, which is believed to be offering ?20m, is the clear frontrunner with talks at an advanced stage.
But what if they do go into administration?
Although the Leeds rollercoaster is currently creaking nervously towards a no-hands screamer of a twist that should see them through to the summer, administration is still lurking near the controls. If that happens, the administrators would take over the club, running it in the interests of the creditors, meaning that players would almost certainly be sold.
And if they don't take that step before June 3, a new agreement made by Premier League chairmen earlier this month will see them deducted nine points - perhaps 10 if they've already dropped into the Nationwide League.
But Leeds are a big club, so surely they'd be back?
Two words: Sheffield Wednesday.
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