Your reading a pre 2010-11 archived article

It perhaps says more about life in general rather than Leeds fans in particular that the news (not really a revelation more an inevitability) that the club needed Leeds City Council’s assistance to find the funds needed to exercise the buy-back rights to Thorp Arch should provoke a polarising of opinions amongst the support. Before I try to contextualise the issues raised by this development (in as cold a way as I can muster) I think it’s only fair to lay one particular card well and truly on the table: Clarkeonenil is a sceptical blog on all matters Leeds United and remains at the extreme level of scepticism so long as the present owners of the club continue to be unknown and the fund manager front-man continues to bring the club into disrepute. That is why the Loveleedshatebates link exists (despite the site being dormant) and that is why whenever an opportunity arises to shed light on usually secret activity the blog will take it. No-one is forced to read, if you’re inclined to sympathy or support for the present regime, you’re better off saving the click.

Now what does yesterday’s release of Leeds City Council’s Executive Board Agenda for 26th August tell us? It clearly shows that the club has asked for financial assistance, it shows that the number of options for alternative sources’ are limited/non-existent (predominately due to the behaviour of the club since 2006), it shows a couple of options that LCC could take to assist LUFC, it shows that a political decision has been taken to try to assist (or be seen to assist), it shows that on the LCC side the negotiators’ are going to be major players, it shows that time is the focusing factor around this issue, it shows that LCC and LUFC have a number of inter-related projects that could be at risk should LUFC’s finances not improve and finally it shows once and for all that Ken Bates is still taking us all for idiots.

Its probably also useful to take out what this isn’t about, it’s not about missing profit, I and others never believed in that £4.5m and probably never will, it isn’t about the Delph money, it isn’t about failed fake fans purchase schemes or supporter buyouts, it isn’t about housing (the first team pitch is not up for repurchasing and that is the only part of Thorp Arch that could be built on under present policies), it isn’t about stretching the concept of “power of well-being” to snapping point (that horse has long bolted) and it isn’t about the 2018 World Cup bid (although we will be told a lot that it is). What this is about is financial failure since 2006 and political expediency, both coming together to the advantage of Ken Bates and the ruling Lib-Dem/Tory coalition, not you note for the benefit of Leeds fans or Leeds council tax payers, just a glorified fund manager and some second rate politicians cutting a deal.

Those facts we can extract form the document are clear, what comes with them is a lot of potential for trouble, for complicated arrangements and for politics to be inter-twinned with the club. Like all convoluted arrangements the devil will be in the detail and specifically, how much will be secured? What option will be utilised (I lean towards expecting them to choose “6.2(ii)”, the buy it themselves and sell it to the club at an unspecified later date, the “novate” option)? Who will the purchase be off? What happens to the first team pitch? All of these questions are subservient to one other; will they be able to secure the purchase before 10 October 2009?

Dealing with the last question first, I suspect both sides legal teams are ready to go, the funds are probably informally secured, the preferred option “risk assessed” and all that is left to do is to secure formal decision at Executive Board and (assuming no call-in procedure is activated) and to be seen to do “due diligence” (oh the irony of just writing those words). The politics of it have been talked through, it’s probably a neutral game on votes but a positive on perception (although one does wonder how closing care homes in the same time period is going to go down with the electorate). Where the ruling coalition might be in trouble is if there is any credence to previously articulated rumours that the unknown owners of the club are also the post Alder owners of Thorp Arch (and if it turns out any of the Krasner consortium own it presently that could rock the boat both ways). Any attempt not to publically declare who the sellers are will lead to accusations of cover-up and possible hidden pecuniary interests (code for corruption). No matter how the funds are secured it will be “tax-payers money” in tax-payers eyes and that demands clarity and transparency, something alien to the glorified fund manager.

The first team pitch issue opens up all kinds of possibilities; it will all depend on access issues. If the clubs right to utilise that pitch stops on re-purchase of the rest of the complex then the unknown owners of it are within their rights to separate it off from the rest and apply to utilise that land productively. I am given to believe that in what used to be called development plans that plot has “future development” status, meaning getting planning permission for houses on it (it sits next to existing housing) would be marginally easier than perhaps it should be. That then opens up some interesting local politics for the next council elections and the inevitable general election on the same day, if I was the successor as Labour candidate in Elmet and Rothwell to Colin Burgon I’d be leafleting that area agitating against any future development on the whole site today (although that person won’t be known until around the same time as the deadline for purchasing Thorp Arch falls).

The other unstated implication (so far) of all this concerns Elland Road. In relative terms Thorp Arch is a sprat to catch a whale. Ownership of parts of LS11 is the big prize and it’s convenient for both sides to think the Thorp Arch plan suits their agenda for the future of Elland Road. From the clubs owners perspective they can just sit back and play a long game around the hotel development plans, keeping dropping the hint that they are interested in doing a deal with LCC and keep promoting the 2018 “vision”. From LCC’s perspective Thorpe Arch sets a precedent around sports ground ownership that is very convenient given the amount of land it already owns in LS11. It also puts the local authority in the driving seat as the Elland Road re-purchase deadline creeps closer (and best placed to ride to the rescue in a post Bates “Maxwell style” confusion).

From the sceptical perspective all yesterday did was open the eyes of a few more people to the sheer incompetence that is Leeds United’s financial activities from 2006, just a few but as they say in the country’s biggest supermarket chain, every little helps. Wins will distract the support, Beckford’s departure will muddy the waters, but be clear, only the tip of the ice-berg has been exposed around this issue so far, there is more to come and none of it is likely to look good. In order to clear the smoke around as rumour follows conjecture the appropriate position to take is this: would Leeds United be having these discussions with LCC if the ownership of the club was transparent and the glorified fund manager a man of integrity (who doesn’t cost the club £1.5m in legal fees), if like me you come to the conclusion no then we needn’t bother with the issue anymore (except in sighing as it develops), whatever arrangement is agreed will just join the myriad of complex, inter-twinned confusion already surrounding the club. It becomes the job of those who can only see good in our present situation to justify these accrued idiocies and they will be doing so to a decreasing group of listeners.

Finally a plea, to those involved in Loveleedshatebates: get yourselves active again, give a rallying focus to those of us who want change, garner again that impressive level of media profile you had (completely disproportionate to other activity) and help shed more light on the financial chaos of our loved club. No-one expects you to oust the present regime overnight, it is just enough you are there. Stand up again and you might be surprised how many stand with you, regardless of how well the team does.