Leeds United ownership state of play - what 49ers finance report means for January transfer window - YEP 25/11/22

A November 8 report that 49ers Enterprises were gearing up for a full Leeds United takeover prompted excitement over a potential new era at Elland Road.

By Graham Smyth

The club's minority shareholders were said by The Times to have made headway in arranging the necessary finance to buy the club from majority owner Andrea Radrizzani. As is the way in the modern game, the news was greeted with transfer-market related expectations, but what does it actually mean for the January window? Not much at all, really.

The timing of The Times article was interesting, given recent and rising fan sentiment that the San Francisco 49ers' financial backers had been quiet in a difficult year for Leeds, and while the story wasn't exactly old news, it simply confirmed what was already known - the Americans are coming. At least that's their plan.

In December 2021 The Athletic reported an agreement between the 49ers and Radrizzani that would allow for a full takeover before January 2024. The Italian quickly made clear, on Twitter, that his global investment company Aser had a break clause, pointing out that anything could happen in the space of two years.

Who could have predicted that within a matter of weeks, rather than years, Radrizzani would have sacked Marcelo Bielsa and held his breath as new boss Jesse Marsch steered the club away from the rocks of relegation on the very last day of the season?

And it's that brush with a return to the Championship that makes a 49ers takeover the unlikeliest of scenarios before the current campaign is at an end, or at least before Leeds' 2023/24 destination is known.

Where Leeds finish in the Premier League is important for two reasons - one as obvious as it is practical and another that, at this point, is still conjecture but feels about right.

Firstly, the price that Radrizzani sets for the club is dependent on Premier League status. Regardless of the Whites' size, stature and undoubted potential, you wouldn't pay the same for a Championship Leeds as you would the top flight version.

Secondly, the 49ers might have got in on the ground floor while Leeds were still a second tier club, albeit one with lofty ambition and an impressive, brave plan that centred around Bielsa, but they're surely in this for Premier League status all that entails.

So whilever that remains in the balance - right now they sit 15th and just two points above a drop zone they have more than flirted with this season - there will be no midwinter change of ownership.

If, when it comes, the summer heralds a fourth successive season of Premier League football at Elland Road, then it might well be the time for Radrizzani to hand over the keys.

In the meantime, the January transfer window looms large and with Leeds in need of at least two first team players, it begs a question - who is picking up the tab?

You could wonder why either side of the boardroom table would be falling over themselves to throw a significant sum at Marsch's team in the new year, when Radrizzani knows that he could soon be selling the club and the 49ers know that it's still his time, his vision and his credit when things go well. Coming so close to losing their precious Premier League place is an experience no one at Elland Road wants to go through again, though, so that in itself could motivate urgency and investment come January.

The summer spend of circa £100m required less than £10m from ownership pockets, thanks to the planned and executed sales of £42m Kalvin Phillips and £50m Raphinha. The money received was reinvested in the squad but the summer window felt sustainable - refreshing almost in an era of wild expenditure. A far cry from the 2020 post-promotion splurge that the owner admitted left the club 'exposed.'

And yet, were that 2022 summer net spend on transfer fees not to prove sufficient for survival, it would take on the look of a failed gamble. This, as the 49ers must now be aware after their four-and-a-half year apprenticeship, is the lot of a football club owner. The sport, the Premier League particularly, can damn you if you do and damn you if you don't.

That being said, it's difficult to look at this Leeds squad and not see the need for further investment, chiefly given the centre-forward situation and the lack of depth at left-back. Unless player sales are once again the vehicle of choice to drive that investment, someone is going to have to pay.

So with the Marsch era still at such a delicate stage and so much riding on the results he masterminds when the domestic game resumes, all thoughts of takeovers should go on the backburner, for now, and that shouldn’t present a problem if relations in the boardroom are as cordial as we’re told. Everyone in the room wants to own a Premier League club, after all.

What happens off the pitch in January will play a part in dictating what happens on it for the rest of this season. What happens on it will then dictate what could happen off it, come the summer.