Paraag Marathe on why he hopes FFP head-scratching becomes a regular feature of his job — Yorkshire Post 28/5/24

By Stuart Rayner

The season just ended was brought to you by the letters P and S. Chairman Padraag Marathe hopes Leeds United have to get used to the alphabet soup of football regulation.

Season 2023-24 will go down as when the Premier League finally got serious about its profit and sustainability rules – or PSR/P&S as it calls its version of FFP (financial fair play).

Everton were docked eight points, Nottingham Forest four. The Premier League are coming for Leicester City when they return to their jurisdiction this summer.

The Football League (EFL) did not hide its frustration at being unable to catch the Foxes but clobbered Reading (six points), Wigan Athletic (eight) and Morecambe (three).

No matter how "well-capitalised" Marathe insists Leeds are, even after money is set aside to spruce up Elland Road and do some preparation work for the major project – a new West Stand – earmarked for a Premier League, there are limits on what they can spend and a "credit card bill" for signings to pay.

Despite that, Marathe hopes PSR chat becomes a regular Elland Road feature, not because he enjoys it or gets excited by dull accountancy, but because he wants to constantly be pushing the envelope as chairman.

Number-crunching will be almost as vital as scouting this summer.

They have £73.6m in transfer instalments to pay and although Marathe pointed out there is some to come in too, the sales of Tyler Adams and Luis Sinisterra to Bournemouth will not cover that.

Promotion to the Premier League last Sunday would have, but Southampton won the play-off final 1-0.

Players will have to be sold, and Leeds will hope those reluctant to spend another season outside the top division raise enough cash to fill the holes and Daniel Farke's kitty.

Unfortunately, Crysencio Summerville – reportedly of interest to Liverpool and West Ham United – and Willy Gnonto – so keen to get away last August and allegedly pining for Serie A now – did not put on great advertisements at Wembley.

Everton would like to make Jack Harrison's loan permanent, but have their own numbers to crunch. It would help them to hold off until after the PSR financial year ends on June 30, Leeds to sell sooner.

Max Wober, Brenden Aaronson, Rasmus Kristensen, Marc Roca and Diego Llorente are expected back from loans, cans kicked down the road for 12 months back in play.

"I'm not willing to concede that there will or will not be a profit on certain players," insists Marathe, but it is easy to imagine Leeds having to subsidise further loans for some.

They will at least be hoping family ties keep 18-year-old Archie Gray.

"It's not just outs, it's ins," stresses Marathe, "but we will have to make some trade-offs because of P&S."

What frustrates some American owners reared on the closed shops of NFL, NBA and MLB, is forward planning is made so difficult by promotion and relegation. Had Dan James' 87th-minute shot bounced the other side of the goalline on Sunday, Marathe could be budgeting with an extra £130m or so.

"It's definitely a challenge," admits a man steeped in gridiron’s San Francisco 49ers. "I've been through quite a bit in six years of being associated with this club from a Covid promotion to hanging on by the seat of our pants, to relegation, to almost promotion again and all of the associated P&S machinations.

"We don't have promotion and relegation in the NFL but I have dealt with agents and players for more than two decades so I feel I can bring a steady hand to this. I'm not going to be emotionally tripped up because of a promotion chase or relegation survival.

"I'm not saying we're never going to have P&S issues. Honestly, my hope is that we're always going to be dealing with some P&S complications because we're always going to be fielding a team as legally competitive as we can.

"But as we're building this foundation we want to be in a place where once we have a couple of years of stability in the Premier League we are a club that every year has confidence we're going to be there and matriculate up the table."

Why does he want that so much?

"I hosted a small get-together with some of our Leeds senior staff and investors on Saturday night and on the flight over I had a little epiphany I shared with everybody," he says. "I was reflecting on 23 years in the sports business and for a moment asking myself why I do this to myself, because sometimes it feels like torture. It's the drug of sports and of being a Leeds United supporter.

"All of us, 98 per cent of the time we live in agony. We live in the woulda, coulda, shoulda world.

"We do that because we chase the high of the two per cent of the time that we get to be in pure joy.

"I just ask that supporters trust that we have a plan and a process and our commitment is to field as good a team as we can to be among the best in the Championship.

"I'm going to succeed or die trying."

It sounds exciting, but Marathe could live or die by the calculator.