Leeds United players' 49ers Enterprises questions as ex-Whites man recalls ownership impact - YEP 28/6/23
Leeds United's players will begin to return from their summer break as pre-season kicks off at Thorp Arch on July 2, with off-field affairs dominating and Whites title winner Tony Dorigo says the squad will want to hear exciting things from their incoming owners.
By Tony Dorigo
49ers Enterprises are awaiting EFL ratification of their
takeover and although that kind of boardroom stuff has nothing to do with the
bleep test or body fat measurements, it still matters to the players. Ownership
and the way a club is run can impact you, as a player.
When I started out in football at Aston Villa we had
'deadly' Doug Ellis, who had a bit of a reputation and he was certainly a firm
businessman but by and large he allowed the people that he employed to get on
with the job so you would very rarely come across him or never had much to do
with the owner.
I found my time at Chelsea very frustrating. It's easy to
say players shouldn't be bothered at all when they cross that white line, all
they can think about is the sport and that largely is correct, but all the
stuff that happens outside is bound to have an effect, however big or small. In
football you're always trying to find the fine margins to take advantage of,
but the opposite can be true when it comes to off-field frustrations. That was
the case at Chelsea. I always felt there were problems that shouldn't have been
problems.
At Leeds again it was completely different. I felt there was
a winning formula here, under an owner who got the right people in and trusted
them to do their job. When everyone is rowing in the same direction it's really
important because it means a shared vision. If the right people are doing the
right jobs, things tend to work.
Last season we heard and read about owners appearing in
dressing rooms after games at one or two clubs. At Torino we had three owners
and a couple of times they all came in en masse. For the Italian players and
their culture that was more normal. Certainly in British football, for me, it
didn't really happen.
At Chelsea we were playing Sheffield Wednesday in the first
game of the season. We've had six weeks of preparation, making sure that we're
mentally and physically prepared and ready to go for this first game. We get
into the changing rooms an hour before the kick-off, and we have someone coming
down to try and get us to sign a document that means we're going to have a
large amount of money coming out of our wages - it was in relation to the match
tickets we were going to get in the coming season. You can imagine what that
looks like. Let's put a hand grenade into the dressing room, when you've spent
six weeks preparing the team to get ready for the first game of the season. It
was absolutely crazy. So guess what? We downed tools, we stayed in our suits
until 25 minutes before kick-off. What's the worst thing you can do? That would
be just about it. Things like that really do have an effect.
As regards the 49ers, players will want to hear from them as
soon as possible. What are their plans going forward, what is their vision and
who do they want? I think any any time that such a big change happens, players
need clarity. Then you'll find you know which players want to jump on board,
which ones don't, which ones will only go so far because if you're talking
about a club that wants to get back into the Premier League, then when you get
to the Premier League, there will be one or two players who will have to be
changed on the natural progression of things. Once we're back in the top
flight, are we going to push for midtable and beyond that, Europe?
If you're a young player, and you hear all these
possibilities, I think it could be exciting, but it's just what stage of your
career you're at, and where you see yourself going on on your own journey. If
it's exciting, if it's new people coming in with a really good vision of the
plan that you believe in, that's really going to be good for the players.
When you get good owners with the right ideas, I think it
really helps to galvanise a whole club and an organisation.
Some owners like to communicate directly with players and
some do it through their manager. I've had a bit of both. It depends on who the
coach is and how long he's been there, but I think just having the owners
there, the main man Paraag Marathe, spelling it out initially is really
important. You need that relationship, even if it is good to have a separation
so you can get on with playing the football while they get on with running the
club, it has to start with synergy. Players will want to listen to what they've
got to say and understand it at the outset.
First things first, of course, the takeover has to go
through and a manager has to be announced. Then we'll start to see the 49ers
plan unfold.