No Leeds for you!
Dirty Leeds United have BANNED the Guardian from visiting Elland Road. The latest in a long list of childish acts by Chairman and Leeds Farceur Ken Bates, the Guardian has been banned for articles that David Conn has written questioning who really owns Leeds United.
In an ongoing court case, Bates has had to retract a previous statement, leading to some questions about the ownership of the club. Previously, Bates has said that he and his financial advisor, Patrick Murrin, held just one ‘management’ share each in the Forward Sports Fund, a company that’s registered in the Cayman Islands and owns Leeds United. That made Bates and Murrin the joint owners of Leeds.
Now the tune has changed and a recent Bates court appearance divulged that there are actually 10,000 shares in the Forward Sports Fund but no information on who holds them. The Football League has asked Leeds to spill the beans as they must pass the famous ‘fit and proper people’ test to prove themselves worthy of owning a football club. The test seeks to find out if the prospective owners have interests in any other clubs, have financially failed at other clubs and generally investigates participation in shady dealings.
Conn has written several articles on the subject and Bates has now decided to throw his toys from the pram. The Guardian are now banned from Elland Road. Which is a shame, as the paper could have reported on how well Norwich played last night even though a stoppage time fluffed goal kick handed Leeds an undeserved 3 points. Still, the Times picked up the slack there.
Leeds and Bates are still keeping quiet on who really owns the club. Something smells here no? I’m sure over the coming weeks the Guardian will not be the only paper asking questions of Bates and Murrin. Will they ban them all?
Ned: I’ve been following Conn’s articles as well. No fan of Dirty Leeds am I, but I’m hopeful Bates will be put out pasture for good. From Conn, it seems there were any number of irregularities in the sale of Leeds to Bates regarding the actual purchaser and the forgiveness of Leeds’ prior debts.
To their credit, even the Leeds fans want to get to the bottom of this mess. I could forgive them if they just put their fingers in their ears and pretended things were fine, considering Bates seems to have stopped (or slowed) Leeds’ slide to oblivion. But it seems like they want the truth out as well, so here’s hoping the fourth estate can make that happen.
It is totally unfair to brand the whole club as “Dirty Leeds United”. We didn’t choose Bates who was hated anyway, before he took us over.
A lot of Leeds fans are frightened of instability if Cap’n Birdseye was to go, but nobody likes him, and if another buyer took us over we would all welcome such an outcome.
Hi Tim, are you an American Leeds fan? The name ‘Dirty Leeds’ is kind of an unofficial moniker for Leeds. They have been refered to as ‘Dirty Leeds’ since the 70′s when Don Revie had them the ‘dirtiest’ team in the country, with a discipline record that has since been unrivaled. And back then players got away with murder, so they must have been bad!