Is Radrizanni's "brand" of football good enough for Leeds United?

[dirty leeds]

It's gonna be a bright, bright Bristol City away?

[eric olthwaite]

Fair play I think to our new Phil for going out and sourcing this article, in the context that so many fans are bleating about expenditure. Make of it what you will:

Leeds United’s cautious approach in the summer transfer market is part of a balancing act, made necessary by Financial Fair Play rules and a wage bill that doubled in 2018.

That’s the interpretation of Kieran Maguire, a University of Liverpool football finance lecturer, who has kept a close eye on the Whites’ financial performance in recent seasons.

He believes FFP, the set of rules that try to ensure clubs do not live beyond their means or buy success with their owners’ wealth, is one of the reasons why the Championship in general hasn’t seen exorbitant spending this summer.

Clubs can run up losses of £15m over a three year period without sanction, but owners can pump in an additional £24m in the form of shares to top it up to a combined three-year loss of £39m.

The issue is complicated by the things that don’t count towards that all-important figure, like promotion bonuses, money spent on academies, community schemes and infrastructure spending.

Birmingham’s nine-point deduction last season for exceeding losses of £13m a season from 2015-16 to 2017-18 brought FFP sharply into focus for the entire division and may have helped shaped this summer’s spending.

But Maguire points to the make-up of the Championship this season and the reduced spending power of a club who until recently were able to hold financial heavyweight status, when considering why cash hasn’t been splashed liberally.

“I think (FFP) is certainly a contributory factor,” he said.

“I think the other issue is that Aston Villa were historically one of the big spenders and some of the other clubs, such as Middlesbrough, were using their parachute payments as a means of trying to sign players who would increase their chances of promotion.

“Boro have now run out of parachute payments and Villa have been promoted, so two of the big drivers of last year’s transfer market are no longer there.”

When it comes to Leeds United, barring what would be an unexpected last minute spending spree, it’s been a summer of sales rather than purchases.

They’ve sold Jack Clarke (£9m) to Spurs, Mallik Wilks (circa £1m) to Barnsley, Pontus Jansson (£5.5m) to Brentford, Bailey Peacock-Farrell (£3.5) to Burnley, Samuel Sáiz (£2.5m) to Girona and Gamba Osaka paid more to buy back Yosuke Ideguchi than they got when he moved to Leeds in January 2018.

Kemar Roofe’s move to Anderlecht, completed last night, landed the club between £6.5m and £7m, although they have to share 15 per cent of the profit they’ve made on the striker, who cost £3m, with Oxford United and West Brom.

A raft of other departures have brought in either undisclosed fees or simply taken players who were surplus to requirements off the wage bill. Although they posted a £1m profit for the 2016/17 financial year – thanks largely to transfer fees – a £4.3m loss followed in 2017/18.

Maguire says player sales and a reticence to splurge on transfer fees – this summer’s marquee signing Helder Costa is technically a loan signing, even if Leeds will eventually have to stump up £15m – help to keep the Whites safe from potential FFP-related harm.

“What they have been doing very successfully is recruiting players and also using their academy to sell players on to mitigate those losses,” he said.

“They’ve certainly had one eye on FFP compliance.

“I think the other issue is that the last two owners [Massimo Cellino and current owner Andrea Radrizzani] simply haven’t wanted to subsidise the club to the tunes of hundreds of thousands of pounds per week.

“They’ve effectively set a limit.

“The Leeds wage bill did go up by 50 per cent in 2018, so under (owner) Mr Radrizzani, he certainly spends a lot more money than his predecessor in terms of wages and I think if club therefore said if we’re going to increase the wage bill significantly, we have to be a bit more cautious where the transfer market is concerned.

“They’re trying to get some balance between those two main player cost areas.”

Where Andrea Radrizzani has come in for criticism from sections of the fanbase this summer is in what they perceive as a lack of investment in the squad.

Head coach Marcelo Bielsa has mentioned FFP a couple of times when discussing player departures, but some supporters accuse the club of hiding behind the rules to both justify player sales and mask an unwillingness to spend on transfer fees for replacements.

According to the documents submitted to Companies House, there has been no equity investment by owners at Leeds since May 2018.

This means that for FFP purposes for 2018/19 the maximum loss permitted was £5m, not £13m. And it reduced the FFP loss limit for the rolling three-year period to the end of 2018-19 to £31m, down from the maximum of £39m.

However Maguire says fans don’t always take into account the money Leeds are spending week in and week out on Bielsa and the squad he’s assembled and he highlights the club’s past financial woes as a good reason for exercising caution.

“The average wage at Leeds has gone up from £10,000 to £15,000 a week between 2017 and 2018 so there is more money being spent. But the fans don’t see it because they see, well we haven’t signed a new centre forward,” he told the YEP.

“But if two or three players are given new contracts, it means substantial increases in expenditure as far the club is concerned.

“From the fans’ point of view, he’s still our left-back as he was last season but we don’t know the intricate details of football payrolls. We’ve been conditioned as football fans to believe that new is better and bigger transfer fees are better.

“Leeds have been relatively cautious in the transfer market, they’ve had faith in their academy, they have invested heavily in the manager and getting more out of the existing squad.

“But if that doesn’t turn out to be successful you turn round and say we sold Chris Wood for £15m and still haven’t replaced him with a £15m striker.

Even when the club has spent money, on the likes of Patrick Bamford, if you sign a player and he goes missing for 12 games because of injury, fans forget that very quickly, they turn around and say we should be trying to spend our way out of trouble.

“Leeds historically have done that, under Peter Ridsdale, and I’m not a Leeds fan but I have lots of friends who are and I don’t want to see the club go through those traumatic times again.

To a certain extent, the hangover of the Ridsdale era still hangs over Leeds, because of what happened in subsequent times with subsequent owners.”

What this owner has done is maximise the amount of cash Leeds United generate through their various commercial revenue streams, which hit record levels in the last financial year.

There’s a sardonic running joke, popular among Leeds fans, that they’re the FFP champions or 2019-20 FFP Cup winners.

But one area in which they do genuinely outperform many of their Championship rivals is in turning reputation into cash.

And for that, Maguire gives Radrizzani praise.

“I think he is very commercial, there’s more money coming in through ticket sales.

“He’s been superb in terms of how he’s organised the commercial side of the club.

“It is without doubt the biggest club in the Championship in terms of using its history and heritage to sign up commercial deals and sponsorship deals.

“We await to see the consequences of the tie-up with the the San Francisco 49ers, but that has potential.

“Leeds, I know it’s a cliche, it is a sleeping giant and everyone is aware of that but what I think he has managed to do is bring some of that awareness of the club into the bottom line in terms of generating revenue.

“From a business perspective I think he’s been very smart.”

[FER]

"There’s a sardonic running joke, popular among Leeds fans, that they’re the FFP champions or 2019-20 FFP Cup winners."

Is there? I've never heard this said. Scouse cunt!

[Phil LUFC]

In relation to that article:


Edit: Looks like the article was edited before you copied it over here Eric.

[jackos]

Third part of Grahams Kinnear interview.

Angus Kinnear interview - part three: Andrea Radrizzani's commitment to Leeds United and rumours of Qatari investment

GRAHAM SMYTH
Friday 09 August 2019
Andrea Radrizzani remains committed to the ‘five-year plan’ at Leeds United and would still welcome investment in the club from elsewhere.

Whites managing director Angus Kinnear says the owner’s commitment can be seen the growth of the club’s wage bill.

It’s the investment in staff and player wages that has taken Leeds ‘to the limits’ of the EFL’s Profit and Sustainability rules, according to the MD.

“The owner continues, across last season, to finance the club,” he said.

“The simplest way to explain it is that he has financed the club right to the limits of P&S.

“I think this is one of things it’s difficult for supporters to understand, but if an investor came in at the moment and gave us £100m we can’t spend a penny more on players because we’re at that threshold.

“He’s never shied away from the requirement to invest in the team, the reason we’re pushing the limits of P&S is because of Andrea’s investment in the wage bill; it has grown two and a half times from the wage bill he inherited.

“That’s been essential to keep players we think can get us up."

One of the players Leeds appear to have done well to keep, despite bids and serious interest from Premier League clubs, is Kalvin Phillips.

The midfielder was a target for Aston Villa and Sheffield United but is still a Whites player after the transfer deadline.

That, and the presence at Elland Road of Helder Costa, is - for Kinnear - further proof of Radrizzani's commitment to the cause

"If you want further evidence of Andrea's commitment it's firstly the decision to keep Kalvin Phillips," said Kinnear.

"I'm fairly confident in saying I don't think there's any other club in the Championship that has turned down offers over £20m for one player this season, I think everybody else has accepted those offers.

"We turned it down.

"Simultaneously, I don't think anyone has made a bigger signing from a financial commitment perspective than Helder Costa.

"That's a loan but it converts to a permanent deal and that will be the single biggest inbound Championship deal this season.

Rumours of Qatari interest have lingered throughout the summer, bringing into question how long Radrizzani will remain Whites owner.

But Kinnear says the Italian media mogul is here to stay, even if he is open to partnering with investors who can help take Leeds forward.

“Andrea remains committed for the long term,” he said.

“We’ve always had a five year plan, we’re two years into it, we talk about the remaining three years.

“There’s always on-going talk about further investment and he’s been very transparent about that from day one and said he would never turn down the opportunity to make the club stronger and if he can find a partner, find investment to make the club stronger then he’ll take it because he’s not in it for personal gain, he’s in it to make the club successful.

"When these rumours persist about other investment, do we talk to people? Yes we talk to people.

“We’ve built Leeds United over the last two years into a very attractive investible proposition, we’ve shown we can have some great success on the pitch, drive revenues, very interesting property development, bringing the training ground back into the city centre, so we’re not surprised we’re getting interest from serious groups who want to come on the journey with us.”

[Mr Reality]

Five year plan.

“We’ve always had a five year plan, we’re two years into it, we talk about the remaining three years.

[kennyb41]

Great read Jacko and totally puts it into perspective for me.

In Bert I trust, he's doing it from fcking scratch and will smile at his pupils when in the Prem, bringing players on that he feels he can work with, bringing money in for himself with those he can't or wants to work with, spotting potential in cheap players whilst throwing in the odd bigger spend, this will soon be his own team and i for one am optimistic he will get us there given complete reins of the footballing side.

" Orta find the fckers, i'll have the final say "

" Radz just come on matchdays with your bosom business buddies and stick to what you're good at, leave everything else to me and i'll get you there "

[welshwhite]

:D Five year plan.

“We’ve always had a five year plan, we’re two years into it, we talk about the remaining three years.

I've been shot down and quite often ridiculed for mentioning it on here. R.

I don't hold peoples lack of club knowledge against them though.

Each to their own, I say

[eric olthwaite]

I mean, the five year plan is fine, whatever, but there's no doubt that the Birmingham points deduction has made all Championship clubs fundamentally reassess what they're doing. It's like a five year plan with a massive war breaking out before the start of year 3.

[Phil LUFC]

Oh, we're doing this again are we?

[metalsmurf]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jackos]

I thought the most interesting bit was in the first part of the interview that I didn't paste above, it's something I agree with completely, I'd go as far as to say finding a proven championship striker is a lot like a lottery. A player has one great season and they get brought by an EPL, but of strikers only have one or two great seasons in their careers, so you can easily end up with a 12M player who no-one wants, sitting on their arses earning 40K a week.

But Kinnear says the possibility of going out and signing a striker who already has a goalscoring record in the Championship is a “myth”.

“The reality is that when you’ve got properly proven Championship players able to contribute to teams that secure promotion, they’re normally Premier League players fairly quickly,” he said.

“It’s really difficult.

“We hear it from supporters, let’s go and buy a proven Championship goalscorer.

“Well the proven Championship goalscorers are Neil Maupay, Chris Wood, Dwight Gayle and Jay Rodriguez who are in the Premier League.

“It’s almost a myth there’s these proven players you can go and secure.

[AndyPaul]

but there's no doubt that the Birmingham points deduction has made all Championship clubs fundamentally reassess what they're doing.

Unless you're Derby of course who continue to take the piss

[eric olthwaite]

but there's no doubt that the Birmingham points deduction has made all Championship clubs fundamentally reassess what they're doing.

Unless you're Derby of course who continue to take the piss

Seeing them fail this season would make me ultra-happy. Morris pissing £40m on fake accounting and getting nothing from it would be an absolute joy.

[AndyPaul]

but there's no doubt that the Birmingham points deduction has made all Championship clubs fundamentally reassess what they're doing.

Unless you're Derby of course who continue to take the piss

Seeing them fail this season would make me ultra-happy. Morris pissing £40m on fake accounting and getting nothing from it would be an absolute joy.

Agreed. I am quite reassured that if one team can rival us for fucking things up it Derby. The thing is I couldn't give a fuck about Derby till last season and now I hate those cunts.

[Mr Reality]

Oh, we're doing this again are we?

Just further clarification that the 5 year plan is a thing.

[dirty leeds]

Unless you're Derby of course who continue to take the piss.

Seeing them fail this season would make me ultra-happy. Morris pissing £40m on fake accounting and getting nothing from it would be an absolute joy.

Agreed. I am quite reassured that if one team can rival us for fucking things up it Derby. The thing is I couldn't give a fuck about Derby till last season and now I hate those cunts.

Re Derby, somebody on Waccoe just pointed out that getting 32Red to fund the Rooney deal and then having him wear the number 32 surely counts as branding - and therefore having a big 32 on his shirt would also be seen as breaking the branding rules as to size and position of branding logos.
Just something else that cunt Morris is trying to get away with.

[Ontolly]

but there's no doubt that the Birmingham points deduction has made all Championship clubs fundamentally reassess what they're doing.

Unless you're Derby of course who continue to take the piss

Seeing them fail this season would make me ultra-happy. Morris pissing £40m on fake accounting and getting nothing from it would be an absolute joy.

Very much this

[Son of Leeds]

May be a red herring, but hasn't Brexit also been an influence in the thinking this summer?

What the fall of the pound in the last three years? 20% 25%? That means a very big difference in European and UK wages. We've got Kemar going to Anderlecht, for example: not many Champ players go that way. What used to be a ten million pound striker from France is now a twelve million pound striker, and his wages have gone up accordingly to get him to come over. The pound isn't likely to rise soon. The economic impact of Brexit Boris won't mean more money on merchandise. Getting to the limit of P&S might become a problem if it all goes tits up.

The richest leagues in the world as a little less richer now. Perhaps we're at a turning point in English football, in which case, keep the kids coming through from Thorpe Arch.

[Phil LUFC]

Oh, we're doing this again are we?

Just further clarification that the 5 year plan is a thing.

I maintain the devil is in the detail. The plan seems to stay and end at "we'll try to get promoted within the 5 years and if we fail, we'll sell up/leave".

I'd be amazed if on day 1 the plan said:
Year 1: consolidate
Year 2: Get Bielsa and fall short
Year 3: Keep Bielsa and go for it

However, it's pretty clear it involved paying £30m+ on wages from years 2 onwards and try to maintain a steady base to build on.

More of a framework really.