Paraag Marathe on Leeds United player sales expectation, past regime transfer lesson and 'mischaracterisation' — YEP 4/5/25
By Graham Smyth
Whites chairman Paraag Marathe has spoken about next
season’s plans.
Leeds United chairman Paraag Marathe expects player sales as
well as transfer additions this summer as the Whites set out to 'nail' their
recruitment.
The Whites will be 'better equipped' than others who have
recently won promotion according to Marathe, who joined a Zoom call with the
local press to address the title win and Farke's future.
While he was reluctant to talk details when it came to the
level of expenditure required this summer to give Farke the squad he needs,
Marathe revealed that they have spent more than half a year drawing up transfer
plans for the Premier League.
When it comes to the upcoming transfer window, Marathe was
asked if Leeds required player sales of individuals who represent profit in
order to create Profitability and Sustainability headroom.
He replied: "I'm not really ready to go into that, but
yes, your speculation is probably right. It's going to be a mix of seeing if
there are inbounds along with outbounds. And that's probably, that's probably
accurate, but really not ready to go into more detail than that. But we are
looking at maximizing what we can do, and so that involves the whole bag, ins
and outs."
Marathe has described the 2025 summer transfer window as the
most important 'in decades' at Elland Road as they attempt to build for the
future at the same as making Daniel Farke's squad 'sustainably competitive.'
The chairman insists Leeds will spend every penny they are
allowed to spend. The decisions they make on where that money goes will be
absolutely vital and he wants to avoid the mistakes of the past regime.
"You've got to nail your transfers," he said.
"You've got to nail the players that come in that really fit the style of
play that you want to have, that fit the club and play together cohesively.
“I think that's really important. Some lessons learned from
the three years when I was sitting as a vice chairman, watching us do what we
did those three years. No doubt we had tremendous success in our first season
in the Prem.
“But we weren't really thinking about building a plan for
multiple years. We were just sort of pay as you go, fly by the seat of our
pants. And I think that's probably something that those clubs [who have
established themselves in the top flight], whether it be Bournemouth or Forest
or Villa, they're building a multi-year plan.
“And yes, of course, it doesn't take away from anything on
focusing on that one season, but it's a multi-year plan, building out a
foundation. The first year is survival, not compete, it's survival, I get that.
Anything more than that would be gravy, but it's building a plan and that's
something that we're focused on."
Marathe went on record to clear up any ambiguity over
Farke's immediate future at Elland Road, stating that the German was his man to
lead the team into the Premier League.
And when it comes to the way they will work on transfers
this summer he wanted to dispel what he called a 'mischaracterisation of the
past.'
When asked about Farke's final say and level of control and
if there needed to be more compromise, the chairman responded: "I honestly
think that's a little bit of a mischaracterisation of the past as well. So it's
not like there's something written in that way. We've always worked together,
and we've always worked where we all need to feel good about an inbound player.
“Unfortunately, we didn't have any decisions to make on
outbound players because of the damn release clauses. But we always work
together on the inbounds, and we're going to continue to do that.
“If there was a player that Daniel didn't want, we didn't
bring him in, if there was a player that didn't fit us for other reasons, we
didn't bring him in. And so we're going to work in the same way.
“We're going to work very collaboratively, probably a little
bit with a little bit more focus on making sure we're making the right group
decisions, because, let's be honest, there's more at stake now, more money,
more jeopardy.