Bør kanskje slås sammen med takeoverrykter, men...
Crowe on takeover...I don’t normally get drawn into lazy journalism – instead opting to write about Michael Brown beating Luke Varney to death with a pogo stick – but there were moments in the BBC Russell Crowe interview that made me ponder. So I apologise for vaguely TOMA-ish content, but with rumours rife about possible Leeds takeovers I wanted to take a moment to consider the Crowe interview.
For those who have had their head in the sand for the past 24 hours, Russell Crowe gave an interview with BBC’s Simon Mayo (discussing his new film) where he said some interesting things about Leeds United. We know he’s a life-long fan (although prior to this interview I didn’t know why) and we know that he’s been spoken to in relation to fan ownership, having gone through a revolution with the South Sydney Socceroos (SSR hereafter) he has a solid opinion on how this should be approached.
In the interview he made the following points:
He’s a Leeds fan because as a child he would watch MOTD with his brother and they arbitrarily selected teams to follow (his brother picking Liverpool) and they have both followed the clubs ever since
He drew a parallel to the SSR’s fall from grace and Leeds, and how under his stewardship he’s made them dominant (specifically holding every title they’re able to)
He said that the SSR’s were his boyhood rugby club, in the way that Leeds are his boyhood football club
He cited that he had “learned a lot in 9 years†of owning the SSR’s and would love to see Leeds get back to the Premiership
It’s that last point that pricked my ears up. The fact that he’s learned a lot whilst owning and restructuring a club is an irrelevant statement to make unless you’re expecting to be able to draw on that experience somehow.
Listen to the interview here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02mb4rmWhat could he mean by that?
I very much doubt that he’s a prospective owner of Leeds United. There are prevailant rumours about Genting Group, Red Bull and an unnamed American Consortium sniffing around the club (or completing due diligence if you believe what you read). So while I think it is likely that Massimo, sorry, Eleonora Sports would be willing to sell (given the Italian Overlord isn’t allowed to play with his toys anymore) I don’t see Russell Crowe being one of those parties. Certainly not when Cellino Eleonora Sports has valued the club at £50m. That’ll take a big investor.
Not that Leeds isn’t a good investment, given the size of the club, fan-base and whatnot, it just doesn’t seem likely. But his wording does imply slightly more intent than I had believed was viable. So perhaps he does have an interest.
In reality I think he’ll be a valuable asset for helping the fan ownership proposition to step forward, as he’ll have valuable insight and advice having done this at SSR.
Are we in the middle of a takeover?
People whose opinions I respect say so, but there’s little evidence to support it beyond trusting what certain individuals say. What adds weight to those claims is that there’s a solid use-case of Massimo wanting out of Leeds – he’s been told off by the Football League and put on the naughty step. He’s been barred from being an “individual of significance†to the club (even though he’s treating Andrew Umbers like a Jim Henson puppet) and it just cannot be fun for the mad Italian. No doubt he feels villified by the FL and it cannot be fun, so if there was an option to sell the club, pocket a load of money and move on, I very much doubt he’d turn it down.
So while I have nothing to substantiate my feelings that there’s a takeover happening, I don’t think it takes an enormous leap of faith to see the opportunity for another owner to step in.