The £13m Restaurant And Jet-Set Mishaps Of Ken Bates' Crazy Reign At Leeds - The Sportsman 21/1/21
It was on this day (21 January) in 2005 that Ken Bates took over at Elland Road
ELLIOTT BRETLAND
Perhaps we should have expected madness all the way when, 16
years ago today, Ken Bates brought the brash personality and big promises for
which he had become known at Chelsea, and bought another of English football’s
historic clubs, Leeds United. Considering what has followed since under both
Bates and his successor Massimo Cellino, it’s little wonder it took The Whites
so long to return to the Premier League.
Having bought the Yorkshire giants six months after their
2004 relegation, Bates promised “a lorra, lorra laughs”, but supporters weren’t
smiling when they dropped down to the third tier under his stewardship, and it
took some time for them to compete again. Here we look at the maddest things
that happened at Elland Road whilst Bates was in the building...
Admin error
After a vast array of incomings and outgoings - Leeds loaned
70 players during Bates’ eight-year spell with the club - a lack of cohesion,
consistency and quality meant the club were on the brink of relegation from the
Championship in May 2007. With one game left, they needed a double-figure win
to have a hope of staying up.
With the club needing serious financial help and Bates
hoping to avoid a points deduction in League One, the chairman put the club
into voluntary administration, hoping to take the hit immediately that season
so there would be no real consequences with the team already all-but down.
Relegated and in the hands of administrators, Leeds weren’t able to buy any
players until a few days before the 2007/08 campaign.
However, things got worse when HMRC lodged a legal challenge
to the voluntary administration. The club was resold to Bates but this time
began the League One campaign on minus 15 points after the failure to exit
administration with a CVA, as required by the Football League. Nightmare.
Somehow, they still reached the play-offs but lost in the final to Doncaster
Rovers.
Desperate deals
Leeds got through five managers during Bates’ eight years at
Elland Road. One of those coaches was Dennis Wise, who played in Europe for
Chelsea when Bates was the main man at Stamford Bridge during the nineties.
Reunited up north, it seems the duo’s transfer strategy was a little flawed.
‘Kevin Keegan: My Life In Football’, serialised in The
Times, revealed just how desperate Bates was to bring in cash at Leeds while
Wise was there.
“According to Dennis, the Leeds chairman, Ken Bates,
approached him to suggest they offer a boy of 17 a professional contract. The
boy wasn’t good enough to be a footballer but that, plainly, was not the most
important detail as far as Leeds were concerned.
“The boy’s father had a successful business and a lucrative
deal had been arranged for that company to sponsor Leeds - on condition they
signed the boss’ son.”
Food for Thought
Leeds needed quality players to get promotion back to the
Premier League, and fans needed to see better football on the pitch too. What
they got was a £13m restaurant.
The East Stand was also refurbished, which sounds like a
progressive move but, according to The Guardian, it was mortgaged against two
years’ season ticket money. When you’re used to Billy Bremner, Howard
Wilkinson’s title-winning side and David O’Leary’s youthful Champions League
chasers, supporters weren’t exactly going to flock to watch Rotherham at home,
so it was a bold move and probably a silly one. Elland Road catering was also
sold for cash upfront while a £1.5m loan was taken out.
When you think, even in today’s money, £13m gets you Robin
Koch, the defender Leeds signed from the Bundesliga this summer, with £1.3m
change. Imagine what you could have achieved in the second tier with those
funds more than a decade ago.
Jet-set lifestyle
After leaving the club in 2013, Bates revealed that he was
in fact sacked as Leeds president over a jet contract. Seriously.
The Guardian reported that the club’s new owners at the
time, GFH, dismissed the then-81-year-old after a deal was struck with private
plane company 247 Jet that could be used to fly him to Leeds from his home in
Monaco.
Costing the club half a million over three years, he claimed,
“I saved the club money, because this was a sterling contract, rather than
euros. I did it in the best interests of the club.” Sterling work, it was not.
Still, he described his dismissal as ‘despicable’.
The best allowed to leave
Johnny Howson was a boyhood Leeds fan and captain of the
club. Kalvin Phillips grew up supporting them too and is seen as a future
skipper.
However, the main difference is that while Phillips signed a
new long-term deal under the current regime, when Bates was at the helm Howson
was left holding out for a new contract and eventually sold to Norwich in 2012.
Robert Snodgrass also joined the Canaries, while Jermaine Beckford signed for
Everton two years earlier on a free, Leeds cancelling his contract a month
earlier so he could find a new club.
Of course, the juggling of finances and risks are
challenging and dangerous in the second tier, but Bates’ strategy of allowing
his best players to leave was no recipe for success.