Paraag Marathe opens up on biting his lip in boardroom and fan frustration - YEP 18/7/23

Paraag Marathe says it was difficult to bite his lip in the back seat at Leeds United during 49ers Enterprises' time as a minority shareholder.

By Graham Smyth

Monday night heralded the end of Andrea Radrizzani's ownership era, one that brought Marcelo Bielsa into the lives of Whites fans, led Leeds back to the Premier League but ultimately ended with the club back in the second tier where the Italian businessman first found it.

49ers Enterprises took a first step into the Elland Road boardroom in 2018 with a 15 per cent stake and twice upped the ante before, finally this week, taking full control of the club and the decision-making power that had rested with Radrizzani.

Marathe admits that being a passenger on someone else's plane did not make for the most comfortable of rides.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, it's been very hard," he told Leeds United's official podcast.

"I'm a pretty open, honest, direct person and so I like to say what I mean and mean what I say. So when I observe something or there's something that I think could be done a little bit better, it was challenging to bite my lip and just stay in my seat so to speak and watch the plane fly. Obviously there's times here and there where we can add advice, especially on the commercial side as we're looking to do certain things but for the most part, the best way I can describe it was me taking notes and I have multiple notebooks of notes now, of how I would like to do things."

Marathe has not been directly critical of Radrizzani, whose time at the club was already running out in the eyes of fans before he considered using Elland Road stadium as collateral to obtain a loan with which he could buy Sampdoria, but the new chairman has revealed he has been on the same page with supporters over certain decisions.

His message to fans is that he himself will risk their ire with mistakes of his own, but he believes they can make Leeds United a success.

"I share the same frustrations of why did this happen or why did we do that? Or how could we let this happen? You know, this happened too soon, or we didn't do this, this took too long - I share all the same frustrations. Just know that I come at this with all of my experience to bear, both as a fan and with my football and commercial experience to do the best job that I can to get this club right. And yeah, I'm gonna make some mistakes, but I'm also gonna get a lot of things right.

"We're gonna still be critical and we're still going to be frustrated at times. But more often than not, I'm confident we're going to build something that we're all going to be proud of, to pass on to our kids and our kids' kids."