As the long-running takeover saga rumbles on, the latest is that Ken Bates has used his used his weekly propaganda broadcast on LUTV to announce that the negotiations about the potential investment in the club are at an "advanced stage."
He said that that both parties are working towards concluding the deal as soon as possible. “There's a number of finer points to be resolved, but we're making good progress. We had four of the top people over here for a big meeting on Friday and they are at our game on Saturday”.
He said that there had been no public announcement on how talks were progressing by saying "The confidentiality agreements that were put in place are very important to the investors”, but he couldn’t resist having a dig at the Trust for doing their best to assess what the situation was in the absence of any news. “There has been a lot of speculation and agitation, especially by the Leeds United Supporters Trust, and I have to tell people that a lot of the statements that have come out are inaccurate."
He didn’t say which of the two middle eastern groups are now in pole position to conclude a deal, but he did say "They are a banking institution and a Public Company and not only can speculation affect their share price, they are also governed by heavy banking regulations. They also have interests across the Gulf, Asia, and Africa”.
And he didn’t say whether it’s going to be a complete takeover, or whether he’s going to sell 50% of his shareholding and remain at the club as a ‘consultant’, as was suggested earlier in the week. I’m slightly concerned by this part of his statement, “Both parties regret missing the August transfer deadline, but we are planning for the January transfer window." The word ‘we’ might suggest that Bates will still be involved with the club in some capacity in January, but hopefully I’m just reading too much into that wording and he’ll be gone by then.
I’ve also heard from a different source that Bates asked Dom Matteo to meet him this morning in the wake of the article Matteo wrote for the Yorkshire Post last week, and Bates told him that he doesn’t want anyone to rock the boat just now, because everybody needs to be pulling in the same direction as something significant is about to happen. So dare we hope that we’re finally going to be rid of the old git at last?