Leeds United's future in question with sale deadline

English Leeds United's 88-year history could come to an end within the next couple of weeks after the club's administrators put the club up for sale. Or the club could finally find itself in stable hands.

KPMG went forward with the move to sell Leeds United because of a legal challenge by Britain's Revenue and Customs over GBP 7.7 million owed to the government by the club. If no one buys the club, it could fall into extinction. If someone buys the club, it could provide balance for Leeds United, which has gone through a saga of sorts over the past few months.

The club's latest conflict started when chairman Ken Bates placed the club into administration and then tried to buy back Leeds United with a lowball offer of 1p for every GBP owed to creditors. With the backing of one creditor that could block any other potential buyer, the offer was accepted.

Later, trying to stave off the government and disgruntled creditors who felt there was more to things than just one creditor protecting Bates, the chairman upped the offer to 8p per GBP. But it wasn't enough.

A High Court ruling Friday postponed a hearing on the case until Sept. 3. A deadline was set for yesterday (Monday) for the club to be sold.

According to skysports.com, there has been no official confirmation but it is thought there are only two parties left in the race - Ken Bates and Simon Franks from the Redbus group.

A new deadline has been set for noon today (Tuesday), by which time parties must have proved to KPMG that they have funds in place to back up a bid.

Leeds United is due to begin the season Aug 11, in the third division for the first time in club history.

Former Leeds United chairman Gerald Krasner, an expert in insolvency law, believes a successful bid for the club would have to be between GBP 10 million and GBP 15 million.

"Whoever buys it will have a club free of debt apart from football debt and therefore I think we'd be talking £5million-plus," Krasner said. "We're not in the Premier League any more and there needs to be a lot of internal investment. This is money for the creditors left behind rather than buying the club."

Bates has complicated matters by saying he will take legal action if the club is sold to someone else.

"Our bid is the original deal that was done in the meeting of creditors when we placed the Company Voluntary Agreement on June 1," he told Yorkshire Radio. "We have amended it twice to try and meet the Inland Revenue's objections and now we've withdrawn the conditionality of it, so it's now unconditional."

Bates also took shots at property developer Simon Morris and the London-based Redbus Group, headed by Simon Franks, saying those would-be buyers made offers they could struggle to meet.

"We believe, in fact, our offer is valid. Therefore it should be the only one to be accepted," Bates said. "So there's a problem and a possibility that if the administrator goes down another route then there could be further legal battles.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.