In this weeks Teenage Kicks In our young writer Darragh Mullen tries to answer David Conn’s questions, which is brave of him.
Every proper Leeds fan hates Ken Bates. There is no getting around it really that anyone who seriously cares about this club past, present or future can simply not like Ken Bates being anywhere near our beloved club simply due to the fact that he is not doing it any good or any supposed good being done is being far outweighed by the terrible hardship he is inflicting upon us! The trouble though is that some people ‘dislike’ Bates more than others. For a time (to my shame) I was actually a member of the ‘Bates has stabilised the club so he’s alright’ group and because my only source of Leeds was the internet, I really was blissfully unaware of the hatred towards this man. It was actually only this season that I discovered the LLHB website and campaign but now I would like to think I am a bit more wise to the man. The realisation actually came last July when at a Leeds – Shelbourne game and there was one solitary shout of “Bates Out!” At the time I laughed it off but I have finally come round to the White Side of life and realised the trouble this man causes. As apparently do the Guardian and the hope is that many more will follow suit!
Beginning with this on Thursday:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/mar/04/football-league-ownership-leeds-united
And then following up with this:
The Guardian have hopefully got the ball rolling on what is actually in my opinion the 2nd most important thing effecting this football club, the first being the League position. David Conn could quite possibly change the future of LUFC for the better, impressive for someone who isn’t a season ticket holder and who is actually banned from Elland Road because of his views. Although I suppose if Ken Bates gets his way he won’t be able to write any more articles from the Gulags but here’s hoping there are a few more from David!
The thing about it is, as it stands we now solely rely on Ken Bates’ word to get our information on the status of the club financially. This in itself needs no explanation as the mans reputation alone is enough in to show how worrying that is. For all we know, these reported profits we are making could be just fed into the black hole that is Forward Sports Fund or Ken Bats personal Monte Carlo Casino account but then again I would only be speculating, much like we are doing now in our current situation.
‘OwnersOut’ seems to be the popular topic in the world of sport at the moment. With machester united’s Green and Gold campaign growing by the day and recently Liverpool fans renting billboards around the city all in attempts to oust their unwanted owners I am left wondering why there is so little response from Leeds fans when their chairman is perhaps the worst of all and we don’t even know who owns us let alone who controlling our finances!? As much as I hate to say it I really do admire the Man U fans in the way they are going about their protests. They are being loud and colourful and letting their feelings known very publicly (although it does help that they get a considerable amount of media attention). The only thing that Leeds fans have done really has been the establishment of LLHB and reading the Guardian. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for sarcasm but “Welcome to Beeston” can only do so much. Someone more creative than myself and with a bit of pulling power in regards to fans needs to step up to the plate and really get this snowball moving. I recall LLHB’s idea of printing off red cards for the Southend game in 2007 and ‘Showing Bates the Red Card’ but with all due respect to the campaign and what their pushing, surely there can be something better. As stated above I am not creative enough to come up with such a plan let alone attempt to rouse people into joining in but rubbish like that and boycotting games will get us nowhere. I will leave this space blank and perhaps something may come up. Until then I personally will try and make an effort (however useless it might be) to reach people trough my media source and I hopefully will address this again in the future.
Anyway, addressing the Guardians 5 questions fans need answered about their Club’s owners.
The first question being do we know the individual owners of our club? The likelihood of that question being answered is very slim and really we have to wait for Lord Mahwinney to step down and let his replacement settle into the position so its going to be a couple of years yet until the policy of the FL is changed. In the meantime it is more likely that we find out sooner by getting promoted to the Premiership and be governed under different rules but I suppose that’s a different topic altogether.
The Second question being do we know clearly what their motivations are? If we are going on what Ken Bates says then yes. ‘To get us back where we belong’ etc. The likelihood is though that their sole aim is to make as much money as possible by sponging off the club and then selling when the time is right, much like renting out a house. We won’t get this question answered until the first one is answered so it also could be a couple of years yet before that’s answered.
There is a little bit of light on the third being do we know what structures they are using? We are told there are 10,000 shareholders in the FSF but that’s about as far as it goes. Question 4 is clearly unanswerable due to the draconian levels of secrecy.
The final question being do you know whether they have been paid money out of the club in salaries, dividends, interest on loans, or made money from the sale of shares, and if so how much? Sadly the answer is that we presume they have been receiving money but we can only make wild guesses as to how much and just worry about it until we do actually find out. This question will be answered last of all and I imagine will be like drawing blood from a stone.
In all it is a very daunting time for our club off the pitch let alone on the pitch. It is as if we are being run by a dictator who doesn’t allow free speech eg. The Guardian ban, but this man in turn is only a puppet to the puppet master of the FSF. It all just reeks of early 20th century history and to be honest I get enough of that at school. Football is supposed to be a leisure activity not a shifty business. After 50 years of dealings in football, Ken Bates still does not understand this!
