Guardian Unlimited Football | News | Leeds have to sell for survival

Wage bill 'unsustainable'

Jason Gee
Monday March 22, 2004
The Guardian

Geoffrey Richmond, the former Bradford City chairman who is acting as adviser to the consortium in charge at Leeds, has confirmed the club will have to sell key players to bring down the wage bill.
"What remains is a wage bill for players which is unsustainable," Richmond said only two days after the consortium finalised a deal with the club's creditors, who were owed £104m. "There are 60 professional footballers on contracts at Leeds United. Fifteen of those footballers are on contracts north of a million pounds a year. It doesn't take a genius in economics to know that that is unsustainable. So there will be players leaving the club."
Gerald Krasner, who heads the six-man consortium that paid £22m for the club on Friday, gave the beleaguered Leeds supporters a more positive message when he backed the caretaker manager Eddie Gray with a vote of confidence, saying the Scot will keep his job for "the foreseeable future". Richmond added that speculation linking Leeds with Gordon Strachan was untrue.
With the club's financial future looking slightly more rosey, Leeds have the opportunity to climb off the foot of the Premiership table with a victory over Manchester City tonight.
Yet Gray first has to avoid an unwanted hat-trick. For the first time since his £6m move to Manchester City 14 months ago, Robbie Fowler returns to Elland Road. Gray has already been haunted by the return of another two former players in the past two months, with Robbie Keane scoring Spurs' winner in a 1-0 victory in January and then Harry Kewell finding the net as Liverpool drew 2-2 three weeks ago.
Gray's problem is that Fowler is a man in form, with four goals in his past four games. "Robbie is looking sharp again," he said. "When he was with us it was difficult for him because he was out for a while through injury, but I used to watch him in training and he is as good as any finisher I've ever seen. It looks now as if he is getting fitter and sharper, which is what he needs, but it spells danger for us. I'm sure he'd like to put one over on us."

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