Mighty Leeds Weblog

Former Leeds United director Melvyn Levi has died at the age of 71, his family confirmed today. Mr Levi suffered a massive heart attack while travelling with his wife, Carole, on a ferry from Bilbao to Portsmouth earlier this month. Paying tribute to her husband, Mrs Levi told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “It was so sudden and we are just trying to pick up the pieces. He is very much missed.” Businessman Mr Levi was part of the so-called Yorkshire Consortium that spent 10 months running Leeds before selling the club to a Swiss-based group with Ken Bates as its UK representative in 2005. A subsequent falling-out between Mr Levi and Mr Bates led to a number of high-profile court cases. Mr Bates was ordered to pay £50,000 in damages in 2009 after Mr Levi made a successful claim for defamation at the High Court in London. And, as recently as March this year, Mr Bates was told to pay £6,000 in damages to Mrs Levi following allegations that she had been harassed.

Ex-Leeds United chairman Ken Bates must pay damages after losing a case brought by a former director's wife. Mr Bates had already been ordered to pay £10,000 to Melvyn Levi after he sued for harassment. Now the Court of Appeal has ruled Mr Bates must pay £6,000 to Mr Levi's wife Carole, even though she was not the actual target of the harassment. Mrs Levi appealed after her initial claim was rejected by a judge at Leeds County Court. In that hearing in 2012, Mr Levi claimed he suffered stress after announcements on the club radio station allegedly likened him to "a fugitive". He also claimed comments made by Mr Bates in a match day programme amounted to speculation over his marriage. Court of Appeal judges Lord Justice Longmore, Lord Justice Ryder and Lord Justice Briggs unanimously agreed Mrs Levi should receive an award. Lord Justice Briggs ruled that two articles in match programmes in 2007 constituted harassment of Mrs Levi. He said: "Not simply because ...

While chief executive at Leeds United the club's radio station made 'unjust and unfair' broadcasts amounting to 'harassment' David Conn Shaun Harvey, chief executive of the Football League, is at the centre of a damning ruling by the regulator Ofcom over "unjust and unfair" broadcasts amounting to "harassment" made by Leeds United's in-house radio station, Yorkshire Radio, while he was the club's chief executive. It is the latest in a series of adverse rulings about the club's misconduct when Harvey was their chief executive and Ken Bates chairman, from 2005 until Bates sold the club last year. Harvey resigned from the club, under the ownership of Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House, in July, and in October was selected by the Football League to be its chief executive, to the astonishment of many Leeds supporters. Ofcom has found that in December 2010, Harvey "instructed" Yorkshire Radio to make at least six broadcasts clai...

BROADCASTING watchdog Ofcom has criticised Leeds United’s now-defunct club radio station over its treatment of former Elland Road director Melvyn Levi. Businessman Mr Levi, 69, lodged a complaint with Ofcom after Yorkshire Radio made announcements in 2010 which he said likened him to a criminal on the run. Now the watchdog has ruled he suffered unfair treatment at the hands of the station, which was launched just over a year into Ken Bates’ reign as United chairman. Leeds’s current owners, GFH Capital, axed Yorkshire Radio this summer, less than a week after Mr Bates was ousted from the club. The Ofcom ruling comes days after Mr Bates confirmed he was seeking to set up a new station called Radio Yorkshire. The broadcasts that sparked the complaint were made during a business dispute between Mr Levi and Mr Bates. Ofcom’s adjudication says Yorkshire Radio put out announcements stating United were “searching for the whereabouts of Melvyn Levi in order to serve him some papers in rela...

The Leeds owner and chairman continues to criticise supporters, despite being found guilty of harassing a former director David Conn Leeds United supporters parched by lack of top-flight football had their welcome draught of it with Tuesday's 2-1 Capital One Cup victory over Everton in the Elland Road rain, a taste of where the fans believe their club should be. The game was watched by David Haigh, a representative of the Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House (GFH), which has confirmed it is negotiating to "lead and arrange" a takeover of Leeds, having been in talks with the club's owner, Ken Bates, since as long ago as June. In an 11-minute address on Leeds's in-house television channel before Saturday's 2-1 victory over Nottingham Forest, which lifted Leeds to 12th in the Championship, Bates spent almost as long criticising the Leeds United Supporters Trust (Lust) as he did discussing the club's destiny. He said of the possible investment in Leeds, which i...

Times Online - Sport Bates returns with £10m takeover deal for Leeds By Ashling O'Connor KEN BATES, the former chairman of Chelsea, was last night poised for a dramatic return to football by buying control of Leeds United, the debt-ridden Coca-Cola Championship club. Bates, 73, was in talks yesterday with the Leeds board and, as he boarded a train for London, rumours abounded that he had agreed a deal. Bates, now based in Monaco, is believed to have offered about £10 million in cash for a 51 per cent stake in the club and the position of chairman. To acquire such a majority he would need to buy out Simon Morris and Melvyn Levy, two of the directors, whose shareholdings together make 51 per cent. Leeds would only confirm that the club was considering an offer of investment from Bates. There is still a rival offer on the table from a local business consortium led by Norman Stubbs and backed by Allan Leighton, the City financier and former Leeds deputy chairman. “We are sti...