“Hold on” – Leeds United stun finance expert with recent transfer howler costing over £800k/minute — Leeds All Over 18/4/24

Kris Smith

Leeds United have broken a world record in how much they spent per minute on Jean-Kevin Augustin, after backing down from their CAS appeal on the matter.

Leeds’ transfer policy has drastically improved with the takeover of the club in the summer after relegation, but the 49ers are still having to clean up the fallout of Andrea Radrizzani and Victor Orta’s mismanagement.

Jean-Kevin Augustin is the summary of how bad some of the club’s investment was, making just three substitute appearances and costing the club an enormous sum of money.

The Athletic revealed this month that Leeds had backed down from their Court of Arbitration for Sport appeal regarding FIFA’s ruling on Augustin.

Leeds were ruled to not only pay a £15million fee to RB Leipzig after opting not to sign the Frenchman after sealing promotion in July 2020 – citing the season’s delay as their perceived loophole, that Leeds hadn’t achieved promotion and triggered the buy option when his loan contract concluded at the start of that July.

However, FIFA and the CAS weren’t having it, seeing Leeds forced to repay the transfer fee, as well as lost wages for the player himself, which equated to over £90,000-per-week across the contract he would have signed under Marcelo Bielsa.

Speaking on The Price of Football podcast, finance expert Kieran Maguire has offered insight into Leeds’ current headache with this losing Augustin appeal.

He said this:

“CAS said we don’t agree, FIFA had said the seasons were being extended so there was a £20million fee to pay for the player and then the player himself said ‘Hold on, since I should have had a four-year contract, on around £100k-a-week, I want compensating as well’.

“After a few stroppy letters from lawyers, Leeds decided they have to pay him up. JKA played 43 minutes for Leeds United so, therefore, this is a world record, worked out in total in terms of both the transfer fee and wages, he cost them £823,000 a minute. An amazing sum of money.”

A rotten moment for Leeds to have to deal with years down the line

As much as the 49ers will have factored in this howler to the club’s accounts already, it’s something that has set us back to the tune of nearly £40million.

The fact that Victor Orta thought it was worthwhile for us to commit such a huge sum of money to a player that was barely playing in France for Monaco is hilarious.

His transfer strategy never made sense at Leeds, magnetised to gambles from the continent rather than signing players that were likely to actually succeed.