Elland Road: Our House… maybe•by Simon O'Rourke
Written by Simon O'Rourke
The story of Elland Road is both depressing and exhilarating at the same time. It has been described by the most decorated of football men as one of the most daunting places in European football. From the vociferous support, to the strategic placement of away fans who bother to make the trip. The stadium has long been in the thoughts of opposition managers and players come fixture list time. To say Elland Road has been one of the most feared grounds in Europe for at least twenty of the last forty years is akin to declaring water is wet.
We all know the story of Elland Road, which was sold off as part of an escape from personal liability by Gerald Krasner and company in 2004 when Leeds United started down a path to financial ruin under Peter Ridsdale, new owners for the club were sought with the goal being to keep Leeds United afloat. Gerald Krasner put together a consortium backed by a loan from former West Ham, Watford and Aston Villa director Jack Petchey. The loan was secured against each Director: Krasner, Melvyn Levi, Melvyn Helme and Simon Morris. Failure to make a £9.5m payment (the original loan was £15m) in late 2004 would result in each director being personally liable for their share of a two million pound penalty, payable to Petchey directly.
The actions taken by the Krasner consortium to protect themselves set the bar for the next decade: Self before side. Elland Road and Thorp Arch were quickly sold to a Manchester-based Consortium instead of accepting a £25m bid from Sebastian Sainsbury based on the promise that the sale would prevent Leeds United from being sold in the near future, and stave off any threat of administration. Selling Elland Road and Thorp Arch was presented as the only way to protect the financial future of Leeds United. In reality, it served only to protect the consortium itself, and Leeds United soon entered the truly dark days of Ken Bates’ tenure, which led to a renegotiation of the Elland Road deal, and a shift in ownership to an offshore company in The British Virgin Islands, a Ken Bates speciality.
The Manchester consortium that purchased the two facilities has never been named until now, but just under ten months of investigating has led to the following names being linked beyond reasonable doubt:
•Jacob and Pearl Adler
•David Neuwirth
•The Weis Family
•Benny Stone
•Bernard and Rachel Olsberg
•Oskar Heiman
•Benjamin Hassan
•Yossef Bowden
The original deal was negotiated by Simon Morris (then a director at the club) and renegotiated seven months later again by Morris to facilitate the inclusion of Ken Bates in the consortium, which allegedly included a slightly higher rent price in the short term, but a more rigid buy-back policy which would allow an acquisition of the ground not only by the club and its affiliated holding companies, but also by the majority shareholder directly should a majority decision be reached in the Leeds United boardroom.
That’s the history lesson out of the way, now let’s look at the future of this once revered ground:
Recently, myself and Daniel Kilburn, both representing this website, met with Adam Pearson and another club official. the meeting took place at Thorp Arch, and the topics were wide ranging but Elland Road and Thorp Arch inevitably came up. We’ll get to Thorp Arch at a later date, but the message from Adam Pearson with regards to Elland Road was very clear: Not only are plans to purchase Elland Road well underway, but “talks are at an advanced stageâ€. When probed for further comment, Pearson simply smiled and restated his stance that he has been told by Massimo Cellino that the club are “well in to talks’ to purchase the ground.
As we left our meeting, I decided to call in some favours that had been stacking up. I wondered just how legitimate these claims were. Keep in mind that Pearson had just told me during the meeting that he “wasn’t even listening to Massimo†when he talked during the press conference (he told the BBC 24 hours later that he listened fully and understood everything), so you can no doubt imagine that I wasn’t convinced.
I reached out to a source very close to the club who did infact confirm that the club had gone much further than the visit by Jacob Adler to “his property†last year —Adler and Cellino sat together and watched a game during December of 2014, presumably with the press told not to report it— Infact, talks had already been underway for a few months by that time, but soon broke down when the Football League refused to take a stand on Cellino’s potential future bans. The American backers walked away, leaving Cellino only two options for acquiring the ground:
1) Put his own money in to the purchase, safe in the knowledge that the alleged renegotiation by Ken Bates had allowed for such a purchase, which actually gave him quite a bit of flexibility for negotiating. He could very easily use the precarious financial position of Gulf Finance House to allow him to purchase it directly, and under his name, something he had of course promised to the fan base on eight different occasions during 2014, most recently upon the completion of his sale of Cagliari.
2) Hire one or more consultants and task them with finding financial backing from third parties.
Massimo Cellino chose option number two, which has allegedly resulted in Cellino having multiple experts on contract, all with the sole goal of finding a backer willing to fund Cellino’s bid for the stadium.
Three months have passed, and none of the experts have met with favourable responses. I am told that several meetings have taken place around Europe, but given Massimo’s storied history, and potential future bans, no company is willing to back him unless he is wholly clear of any future sanctions.
The message from within Elland Road is clear:
We will buy our home back, but only if someone else will pay for it on our behalf, and only if Massimo is clear of potential sanctions.
It has been posed to me by a different person close to the club that Pearson is the wild card here: Any deal that Pearson can propose to Cellino once his next ban is in effect would be met with a counter offer to Pearson by Cellino: You take the majority of the club, and I’ll take the stadium. This would put Pearson at the helm, and give Massimo a lasting presence at the Football Club until such time as the club can return to the ‘promised land’ of Premier League football.
What was clear to me, regarding Elland Road anyway, was that the club have finally decided “enough is enoughâ€, and are making a concerted effort to return it to the club. Sort of. Maybe.
http://www.2900miles.com/elland-road-our-house-maybe/
