'I would ask' - Paraag Marathe's Leeds United promise, ambition, 49ers request and big six swipe - YEP 12/6/23

Paraag Marathe has already made a strong Leeds United vow in outlining his personal Whites intent and desire to be seen as one of the club’s own.

By Lee Sobot

Leeds announced on Friday evening that Marathe’s 49ers Enterprises group had reached an agreement with Andrea Radrizzani’s Aser Ventures for the purchase of the club. United added that both parties were continuing to work through the details and that further updates would be provided soon.

But the relegated Whites are heading for new ownership upon their Championship return, steered by a man that has already made his feelings clear having first joined the Whites rollercoaster ride back in May 2018 when the 49ers invested in an initial 15 per cent stake in the club.

In Radrizzani’s first season in complete control, a Leeds side that started the campaign under Thomas Christiansen and finished it under Paul Heckingbottom limped to a 13th-placed Championship finish but everything was about to change.

The following month, Marcelo Bielsa was brought to the club and the rest, as they say, is history, though not without a heart-breaking end to Bielsa’s first season in charge via defeat to Derby County in the play-offs semi-finals. Marathe had only been with the club for a year but the reverse hit him hard.

"That was just painful,” said Marathe of the play-offs defeat in an interview with the BBC’s Dan Roan in May 2021. "I remember that experience of coming back to the hotel eating takeout curry and just feeling depressed.”

That, says Marathe, is because he is a supporter, not just an investor, and the man who is expected to be named United’s new chairman has already vowed to fight for United’s best interests in both ups and downs.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with the BBC as Leeds closed out their first season back in the Premier League, Marathe said of American investors: "One thing that I had observed over the last decade/decade and a half of American investment in Europe is detachment.

"There was just a certain level of emotional detachment or engagement from within the sport, almost like it was a place to be parking money, like you're buying an apartment building and hoping for the appreciation of the asset as opposed to being passionate about it and caring about it. And especially when you're getting involved, when one gets involved with a sports club.

"Yes, it's an asset and all that stuff, but you have to have an innate competitive drive as well. For us, matches are on at 4:30am in the morning in San Francisco and we're up and we're on WhatsApp groups among us executives of the 49ers and we are celebrating wins and we're commiserating losses.

"My Saturdays are either made or ruined by 6.15am in the morning, because I care and that's not something that I'm trying to do, that's not a conscious thing, that I'm actively thinking, okay, ‘I need to care.’

"It's because it's inside and that's just the essence of at least English football. That's the fabric of what this is all about, that's what makes European football and particularly English football special, the fact that you have to earn it and the fact that nothing is given. There's something special about that and it's not even something that you have to learn to embrace, it has to already be within you."

Marathe was speaking at the time of the infamous failed plan of the Premier League’s ‘big six’ to vacate the division and form part of a new European Super League. Those plans did not wash well with Marathe.

"I think shocked is probably the wrong word. I think I was disappointed,” he said at the time. "I use the phrase about (promotion) being such a rewarding season, the reason it was rewarding was because it felt so earned, 16 years not being able to be here (in the Premier League) and finally being able to be here.

"I have only experienced a little bit of the pain. The supporters of Leeds United, the ones that had been here for multiple generations, they've experienced that for almost two decades. Because of that, that's what makes it that much more special and that's what makes the reward that much more special. And also that makes you feel like you have to continue to fight for it.

"You have to continue to earn it. It's not once it's achieved, it's forever there and so that's the part that I feel like was maybe a little bit disappointing. Some of these clubs, I even hesitate to use the term ‘big six’ because who named them the ‘big six’?

"Do they proclaim themselves the big six because 15 years ago/20 years ago, two or three of those big six were in the bottom six. That was the part that was disappointing because it was almost like they had anointed themselves."

Under Bielsa, Leeds themselves were en route to a brilliant ninth-placed finish at the time with Marathe and his 49ers Enterprises group owning 44 per cent of the club having further increased their stake in the Whites the previous November.

Nearly three years on, Marathe and his 49ers are about to assume full control and the man who had been United’s vice chairman has already declared his intent to “earn” supporters’ trust and hopes his sporting fan background provides the perfect platform to do so. The American has also promised to defend the club that he sees as his “little brother” in times of need.

Marathe explained: “I grew up a stone's throw from the 49ers headquarters, literally 10 or 15 minutes away. I grew up there and I watched every 49ers game since I was six-years-old. In fact, the only difference now is I am paid for it. And so I am a supporter and as I advance with the 49ers, that's how I view myself.

"I was carrying the torch for all 49ers fans and felt that sense of pride that came with it to help the 49ers get back to where we needed to go. With Leeds, it's very similar in that we have the support and the Leeds supporters’ Advisory Trust, we lean on them, we listen to them, we spend time with them, and that's something that's special. It is something that really draws me towards English football and has made me the fan that I am today.

"In American sports, people are fans of their teams and they love their teams, no doubt about it. But it's different here. Here, even saying you are a supporter or a fan of a team is doing a disservice to the level of fanhood that you have because a club is part of a family.

"Leeds United is part of our supporters. It's like a little brother or little sister to all of the different families and communities across Leeds and across the UK and the world really - a little brother that you poke fun of, that you make fun out of when they struggle.

"But if somebody else pokes fun at them, you're going to defend them to the nines and that is something different. That's a level of fanhood that even saying you're a fan or supporter is almost a disservice. It is part of families and communities. We have to embrace that and frankly, if you're not going to embrace that you shouldn't be involved."

Asked at the time if he had a message for United’s fans about their American investors, Marathe declared: "It'll take time because trust is earned. But what I would ask Leeds supporters is just trust our intentions and trust our intentions are pure.

"I don't want to be known as the American investors or American owners of the club. I want to be known as a Leeds supporter first. For us, yes, do we make a financial investment and do we have a financial interest in the club's success? Sure we do.

"But this is about passion, this is about competition, and this is about achieving a level of success because Leeds is my little brother now and the club is my little brother. I'm going to poke fun at us when we're struggling and I'm going to defend us when anyone criticises us.

"I want to see my little brother graduate college, get a great job, have a family of his own and Leeds is part of my blood now. Calling us an American investor is like calling a fan a fan and I think that is a disservice to me and us. I feel we're much bigger and much more than that. I hope supporters will start to see that and I can earn their trust."