Over and out

The obituary for Leeds United was finally completed on Saturday afternoon as the club were effectively relegated to the third tier of English football.












United still have the go through the formality of a trip to Derby County this weekend but the reality is that next season Leeds will find themselves slumming it with the mighty Carlisle United, Northampton and Cheltenham Town.

The fall from grace has been a six year story in which the club have been the butt of almost every joke conceivable. It began with an enthusiastic chairman who felt that no price could be put on being Mr Popular, a manager who publicly criticised his players whilst they were sitting at the top of the football tree and then ended with one of the most despised men in football saving the club from financial oblivion.

The finger of blame has pointed in all manner of directions since the club's demise. Ridsdale's financial decisions are what most point to as the start of the road to disaster, O'Leary's book had catastrophic effect on the morale of a team that was arguably the best in the country at that point and a host of unconvincing consortiums and managers couldn't halt the rapid descent down the football ladder.

Ken Bates has since come in, allegedly with the club just two days from liquidation, and has attempted to turn the club around but his methods have been branded madness by those who frequent Elland Road. Ticket prices are now more costly that those found at current Premiership leaders Manchester United, local businesses are being put out of action and the Chelsea connection of Bates, Wise and Poyet has left a bitter taste in the mouth of many.

The future for the club looks bleak. An appeal has been made for investors but their is hardly a long line of local money-men queuing down Elland Road.
The club's assets amount to a handful of players which have limited value between them and the remaining debt of Ridsdale's £100m legacy. The club no longer owns its stadium or training ground, the club's city centre shop has been closed and all that remains of the club for a buyer to purchase is a brand name - and a tarnished one at that. It takes a brave man to pay a seven figure sum for damaged goods and with the 'sold as seen' signs very much on display, many investors will be put off before they get to the initial viewing.

Since 5:30 on Saturday, BBC Radio Leeds has been inundated with callers proclaiming that "we'll be back", but the reality could be very different.

The club will go into pre-season training this coming summer with barely a handful of the players that took to the field this season. 43 players donned the white shirt this term, a statistic that goes some way to explaining why Leeds are just 90 minutes from confirmed relegation barely 12 months after they were 90 minutes from the Premiership. Of the players that are actually contracted to the club, a good few will feel that League One is beneath them and will move on. Healy, Cresswell, Derry, Nicholls, Marques, Blake, Thompson, Flo and of course, the long-serving Gary Kelly will all be looking to the Elland Road exit door in the coming months.

That on its own would be a difficult predicament for any club to find themselves in. Yet with no money to fund new players, Leeds United must not only find a solution, it must do it with increasingly limited resources. One hope is that the youth team will bear fruit and that the likes of Howson and Elliot will be joined by players capable of impressing at the new level. But in the third tier of the game, impressive youngsters soon start to attract the interest of bigger rivals. The 'all new' Leeds United that takes the field in September could well be dismantled come the January transfer window.

Leeds United's fate has been sealed with short-term thinking and throwing money at problems in the hope that they will go away and I fear that, where the situation allows, this will be the case again.

I don't doubt that a club the size of Leeds, in a city the size of Leeds could afford to spend too much time languishing in football's black-hole but at the same time, the fear is that if the solution to the problem involves yet more short-term thinking, then we could be having similar discussions in 24 months time.