Poor Old Leeds

Darthshearer

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As a lad from Leeds who supports the Toon through my parnets, I still find it hard to see what is happening to Leeds.

I have laughed and joked about it all along but over the past month its really come out how much in the shite they are. I for one hope Leeds do sort themselves out as I would hate it to happen to my footy team.
 

Gurnox

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Darthshearer said:
As a lad from Leeds who supports the Toon through my parnets, I still find it hard to see what is happening to Leeds.

I have laughed and joked about it all along but over the past month its really come out how much in the shite they are. I for one hope Leeds do sort themselves out as I would hate it to happen to my footy team.

The problem is that it's looking more and more likely every day that they are going to be the first big casualty. It doesn't help matters when you get the likes of Tottenham making utterly derisory offers for their best players either. Although I doubt they'll be the last.

The thing that really winds me up is that you can guarantee, that at some point (Probably when they've rejected a pay 'deferral'), they will try and scapegoat the players. Just wait, it'll be 'Dacourt earns £44,000 a week and barely plays' or 'What has Batty done to justify the money he has cost' e.t.c. OK, they're being paid a fortune. But who offered them the money in the first place?

It just goes to show what bad management, at board level, can do to a club. Wouldn't surprise me either if Man City ended up in the same boat in a couple of years time.
 

Darthshearer

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Thats what has fucked them up. Bad management. What sort of club paye player who aint playing there i.e Fowler. Or managers who have left. All these add up!
 

mank!

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As a fan of a club who have been in administration and emerged from the other side fairly well I can empathise with Leeds fans, but you can't really blame O'Leary and the players for what bad management did to the club. I for one hope they don't go down the pan as it won't be good for football whatsoever.
 

Darthshearer

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mank said:
As a fan of a club who have been in administration and emerged from the other side fairly well I can empathise with Leeds fans, but you can't really blame O'Leary and the players for what bad management did to the club. I for one hope they don't go down the pan as it won't be good for football whatsoever.

You cant blame O'Leary fully. Yeh he speny the cash, but he has been away from Leeds a while. Surley since him leaving they could have sorted some sort of structure with their accounts instead of letting it go into freefall!.
 

mank!

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Darthshearer said:
You cant blame O'Leary fully. Yeh he speny the cash, but he has been away from Leeds a while. Surley since him leaving they could have sorted some sort of structure with their accounts instead of letting it go into freefall!.
You can't blame O'Leary at all. It's not his job to look after the finances, he is a FOOTBALL manager not a business executive. Ridsdale gave him the money, it's Ridsdale's fault.
 

Gurnox

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mank said:
You can't blame O'Leary at all. It's not his job to look after the finances, he is a FOOTBALL manager not a business executive. Ridsdale gave him the money, it's Ridsdale's fault.

If you're trying to build a team and someone is offering you x million to go and do it with, you wouldn't think twice about spending the money. The chairman is there to keep an eye on things and, in Leeds' case, this wasn't done.

There were stories circulating that Ridsdale had his own chauffer, a rented and privately maintained fish tank (!) and God knows what else. The idea of leasing players was suicidal. Does make you wonder who else might have 'bought' players in this way though.
 

mank!

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Gurnox said:
privately maintained fish tank (!)
That kind of sums up the whole situation. £20K a week they cost!
 

dysfunction

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And the company I work for thought it was a good idea to insure Leeds United....
 

Tom

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It all started to go wrong when Bowyer revealed his true colours. The team just didn't work after that incident.

Personally I'd laugh if Leeds died. It would serve them right for chanting 'Munich Bastards' every time Man U play there.
 

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Tom said:
It all started to go wrong when Bowyer revealed his true colours. The team just didn't work after that incident.

Personally I'd laugh if Leeds died. It would serve them right for chanting 'Munich Bastards' every time Man U play there.

What colours did Bowyer show then? So all the fince problems are down to the court case are they?

I dont agree with Leeds and The chanting of the Munich thing but in my exoeriance of being at Leeds matches, I have seen loads of people chucked out for that chanting! I mean what about Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Preston, Port Vale etc etc when It comes to Munich?
 

Tom

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Well, Leeds were doing quite well as a team until the whole sorry saga with that court case. After that, they just disintegrated. Not qualifying for the Champions League, then O'Leary leaving, finished them off.

I'd say most of their problems are down to that court case. If that hadn't happened, maybe they'd be in the top five now.
 

Darthshearer

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Well maybe Maybe it certainly didnt help but qualifiying for the champions league that yeat they still would have been in the shite. Its like mank said it all down to poor managment.

I have also heard, through intrest it may be as much as £110m :(
 

mank!

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Tom said:
Well, Leeds were doing quite well as a team until the whole sorry saga with that court case. After that, they just disintegrated. Not qualifying for the Champions League, then O'Leary leaving, finished them off.

I'd say most of their problems are down to that court case. If that hadn't happened, maybe they'd be in the top five now.
The court case didn't cause them to spend extortionate amounts of money, so it's got nothing to do with Bowyer.
 

Tom

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They spent lots of money, gambling on success in the Champions League. The court case directly affected that success, and they lost their shirts. There are very few Premier League clubs that aren't in debt, should Leeds stay up this season they'll probably survive.
 

Gurnox

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Tom said:
They spent lots of money, gambling on success in the Champions League. The court case directly affected that success, and they lost their shirts. There are very few Premier League clubs that aren't in debt, should Leeds stay up this season they'll probably survive.

They'd still be in trouble even if they'd stayed in the Champions League. Just wouldn't be so urgent that the administrators were hovering outside the door. As detestable as the whole Bowyer thing was, you can't lay the blame at a players door. It's up to the manager in that case to keep the team ticking over. Good example being the accusation of Titus Bramble et al over the hotel rape.

Personally I think that, unless they get an investor who is mad/stupid enough to take on that huge amount of debt for hardly any assets, they're under relegation or not.
 

Tom

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Football clubs aren't run as businesses. They're run as charitable organisations. Only one in this country makes any kind of profit, and thats mostly because they've had the foresight to train new talent, and because they have a very marketable history. Other clubs should look and learn.

They might be in trouble still if they were in the Champion's League, but nobody would be talking about administration, because they would still have a kick-ass team worth millions. They wouldn't have sold so many players, and if they had, they would have received far more than they eventually got.
 

mank!

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Tom said:
They might be in trouble still if they were in the Champion's League, but nobody would be talking about administration, because they would still have a kick-ass team worth millions. They wouldn't have sold so many players, and if they had, they would have received far more than they eventually got.
If they had of continued - and let's face it they overacheived in getting to the semi-finals of the CL - being successful but nearly missing Ridsdale would have simply ploughed more money into it and the debt would have increased not been reduced. Not selling the players would have meant paying high wages for even longer. It's probably best that this has all happened now because the debt would have simply caught up with them at one point or another.
 

Gurnox

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Tom said:
Football clubs aren't run as businesses. They're run as charitable organisations. Only one in this country makes any kind of profit, and thats mostly because they've had the foresight to train new talent, and because they have a very marketable history. Other clubs should look and learn.

They might be in trouble still if they were in the Champion's League, but nobody would be talking about administration, because they would still have a kick-ass team worth millions. They wouldn't have sold so many players, and if they had, they would have received far more than they eventually got.

Not strictly true. Charlton and Villa have both turned in a profit in recent years. Still a feeble number of clubs though.

I agree with Mank on this one. Ridsdale would have spent more and more. You can say 'what if' until you are blue in the face, it still wouldn't change the fact that Leeds are still in desperate trouble. This is not the fault of Bowyer, or any other player, but the fault of Ridsdale.

What gets me is that if Ridsdale had done this at any other form of PLC company, say a city bank, chances are he would have been prosecuted for mis-appropraition of funds.
 

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