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Showing posts with label phil willis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phil willis. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 March 2010

Who actually owns Leeds United?? - Who cares!?!

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For the last several weeks I have seen countless internet pages, newspaper columns and message board posts relating to the ownership of several professional football clubs but most have focused mainly on Leeds United, either for easy reference or in a sinister attempt to provoke trouble at the club, in what are relatively stable times. For some reason the calls for transparency are getting quite heated, as fans, officials and even members of our Majesty's Parliament demand to know who owns 'our' club. There have been calls for The Football League to adopt the same ruling as The Premier League and insist on total transparency with regards to ownership of their member clubs, information that is freely available to the public.

Now I can sort of see why these people are getting upset. What have these clubs and Leeds in particular, got to hide by keeping the identity of the ownership out of the public domain? Its obvious that Ken Bates has some sort of stake but ultimate ownership is credited to FSF Limited in The Cayman Islands. Quite who FSF are or what they do is a mystery! Perhaps this is what the problem is, fear of the unknown. Mr Phil Willis MP has thrown his influence behind the movement and called for league officials to sanction the transparency ruling. Now forgive me if I'm wrong but Mr Willis only seems to comment on Leeds United matters when he can publicly berate our Chairman, it is Mr Willis who has 'demanded', more than once an investigation into the deal that saw Leeds United re-sold to Ken Bates in 2007 and made detrimental comment at every available juncture ever since. This after throwing his weight behind one of the failed buy-out packages that were available to KPMG in that dreadful Summer. The words 'Sour' and 'Grapes' come to mind. Perhaps Mr Willis should concentrate on matters in his own constituency instead of those in LS11. If you don't have anything positive to say, don't say anything!

Perhaps its just me, perhaps I'm not a 'real' fan or maybe its because I don't live in Leeds that makes me totally disinterested in who actually owns Leeds United. I take up my seat on a match day and live the entire 90 minutes (plus Fergie time) like victory is a life or death situation. I totally relate to Billy Bremner when he said "A goal against Leeds United is like being stabbed in the chest" (or words to that effect) and Leeds United is part of me. Whatever the outcome of this season, either ecstasy or the all too familiar despair of another failure... at no point will I stop and think, this promotion is all well and good but "who actually owns Leeds United?" Yes Ken Bates has his failings and his customer relation skills rival that of George W. Bush but I'm content in the fact that nobody will take the p*** out of my club or rape it of its assets whilst Uncle Ken resides in the throne.

This isn't a pro Ken Bates rant, far from it but everyone demands to know "Who actually owns Leeds United?!? - Who cares!! We're finally going in the right direction after years of turmoil, idiocy and ineptitude, whomever this mystery man is... they're not doing a bad job are they?

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