What a change in fortune for Leeds United (Leeds United A.F.C.)

Member Name: StephenW2001

Product:	Leeds United A.F.C.
Date:	31/01/03 (61 review reads)
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Leeds United, a team that for the last few seasons in the English Premiership, were always in the top 5 in the league under David O' Leary. He spent an awful lot of money (I think it was around 100 million pounds) and didn't win a single trophy. The chairman, Peter Ridsdale was expecting to get quite a lot of return on his investment, but didn't really get that much, apart from respectable league positions and getting into the Champions League once.

This then led to the departure of O' Leary in the summer of 2002 and the arrival of veteran manager, Terry Venables. I'm pretty sure he didn't expect to have the sort of season he's had and neither would any of the Leeds United fans, or even me. The season started of pretty badly and there was a chance that if their poor run continued, they could end up in a relegation battle by the time May rolled around. Suddenly, they started get on a good run of form and get out of the danger zone, but an exit from the UEFA to the hands of Malaga in the Third Cup meant that the European dream was over.

The team currently lies 13th in the table, which is pretty appalling by this clubs standards, however, you can't really blame Venables too much for this. The club is in extreme financial trouble and he is having to sell off several first team players. The board don't seem to be very clear with the fans or the manager about this and it could very well lead to El Tel resigning in the near future.

In the summer, they had to sell off Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United for 30 million and Robbie Keane to Tottenham for around 6 million. And recently, in the January transfer window, they have sold off Lee Bowyer to West Ham, Olivier Dacourt has joined Roma on loan to get him off the wage bill and for the the transfer to be made permanent in the summer. Yesterday, Manchester City signed Robbie Fowler for 7.5 million and it seems as though Jonathan Woodgate will move to Newcastle Uni
ted before the end of the window for 8 million and a further 3 million as an appearance fee. This total will probably end up being over 50 million, which is an incredible amount of money.

Even then, who is to say that the club is in a decent financial state after this? The debts may start to creep up again before the end of the season with the high wage bill they have and it is almost certain that they won't make it into Europe this season. What does this mean for Leeds? I'm not totally sure, but it certainly isn't good. Peter Ridsdale obviously had a huge plan for Leeds United and took big risks in trying to make this work, but it hasn't and the club is now feeling the effects of it. The business plan wasn't a careful one and clubs all over the world, especially teams like Lazio, Roma and Fiorentina have been victims aswell. The financial situation in world football right now is not very good at all and only teams like Manchester United and Real Madrid can afford to splash out 20-30 million for a player now.

I hope for Leeds' sake that if they do end up selling Woodgate, this will be the end of it and they can start to think more about on the pitch work, than off the pitch. Several key first team players have been shipped, so we will just need to see if they can manage to survive without them and then improve on their league position.

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