Ken Bates’ latest broadside against the fans opposed to his leadership of the club is that the demonstration at the Middlesbrough game in August cost Leeds United a £20 Million investment.
Before the season had started we had been angered by the sale of goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and the departure of Bradley Johnson and Neil Kilkenny on free transfers, while vast sums were being lavished on corporate facilities in the East Stand. So at the first home game a demonstration began beside the Bremner statue before moving round to the car park behind the West Stand.
But now Bates has claimed on Yorkshire that a Saudi Arabian Leeds supporting businessman was about to invest this sum before he came to Elland Road that day and didn’t like the look of the fans who were protesting against our dear leader. "He came over in the week the season started. He was very impressed with everything and Shaun (Harvey) showed him around the ground, he saw the new pavilion and he saw the work that was underway in the new East stand. He thoroughly enjoyed it”.
"Unfortunately, we then entertained him for the day when we played Middlesbrough when the silly demonstration took place. In those days, we were in the old West Stand boardroom and they decided to prance around outside the boardroom, where you can see out of the windows. We then never heard back from them and it dragged on. Eventually, he rang me up and said ‘I am still a big Leeds fan but we cannot afford to be associated with that kind of nonsense in the society we live in back in Saudi Arabia.`”
Bates went on to further antagonise our disillusioned by calling the fans who took part in the demonstration 'morons` in his programme notes in for the next home game against Hull City, but this is the first we’ve heard of this story. Is there in any truth in it, or is Bates just trying to make excuses for the continued failure to hang onto our best players and trying to put the blame elsewhere?
I would have thought that the biggest problem in attracting any investment would be the complex web of companies that Bates uses to control the club, so no prospective business partner for Bates could be sure of what exactly they are getting for their money. Before anyone parts with that amount of money they will get their accounts to conduct a thorough ‘due diligence’ audit of the club’s books, and if they feel they wouldn’t get any say in the running of the club they will walk away.
I feel certain that nobody will invest any significant sum if they have to share control with Bates, so Leeds United won’t start to move forward again until the old man decides to sell up completely.