Ever since the club officially confirmed that they were in talks with a prospective investor, all manner of rumours have done the rounds as to the identity of the mystery buyers. At least four different nationalities have been mentioned, but according to today’s Yorkshire Post the purchasers are from the Middle East.

The club have yet to announce any further details, and it will be next week at the earliest before the deal is concluded, as the buyers go through the process of conducting a ‘due dilligence’ analysis of the club’s books. Let’s hope they don’t find anything to put them off and dash our hopes at the last minute! And we don’t yet know if Elland Road and Thorp arch are part of the deal, as well as the club itself.

It’s all very exciting, and we can but hope that the investors are some mega-rich oil sheiks rather than the likes of the Bahraini prince who was rumoured to be buying us in 2004, but who turned out not to have the means to solve the financial crisis we were in at the time. I’ve no doubt that Bates will have driven a hard bargain so that he will leave the club with a decent profit, so the investors will need to have deep pockets to be able to rebuild the squad once they’ve bought him out.

But with the size of our fanbase and illustrious history of the club there’s no doubt that many will see us as the having the greatest potential of all the English clubs not already in the hands of a super-rich tycoon, so maybe we can dare to dream of an owner with the resources to take us back to the Premier League.

Photo: Action Images

Leeds United Polls