Is football enough fun to last?
Despite Angus Kinnear's assurances that everything is fine, he couldn't offer any optimism as a result, because football doesn't work that way anymore.
Somewhere around the hour mark of Angus Kinnear's ninety minute interview with The Square Ball podcast I started to get the chill of what it must be like to work with him, the stultifying vibe of a meeting that could have been an email. What he said could have been bullet pointed:
- This summer, Leeds United had to sell some players to comply with Profit & Sustainability regulations
- Three players got offers from the Premier League that they wanted to take, so Leeds sold them, complying with PSR and improving that position for the future
- It's hard to keep Premier League quality players in the Championship (so clubs have to give them release clauses)
- It's hard to buy Premier League quality players in the Championship (so clubs have to give them release clauses)
- This is why Leeds United are playing this season without a no.10
- The club think they have a good squad anyway and everything is fine
- The stadium expansion to 55,000 capacity that was almost an expansion to 60,000 is now going to be an expansion to 53,000, and is still at the pre-announcement stage
- Red Bull have never indicated a desire to buy all of Leeds United, and Kinnear says if they tried to change the name/colours he would leave (I think the phrase is 'don't threaten us with a good time')
The last part, on Red Bull, misses the point a bit. Assurances from current board members like Kinnear and Paraag Marathe are fine as long as they are here, but the concern with Red Bull is about the world after 49ers Enterprises. One thing that isn't clear from the announcements so far is whether Red Bull bought into the 49ers Enterprises investment group, or bought a stake in Leeds United separately. One day when the club is being sold, if it's the former, 49ers need to hope Red Bull are as amenable to the terms as all the golfers and actors in the fund. If it's the latter, they'd better hope whoever is buying the 49ers Enterprises' part is happy to be partners with Red Bull. If it's Red Bull doing the buying, everything changes. Either way, the current assurances from 49ers Enterprises will leave with them, while we could still be left with Red Bull.
Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
On release clauses, PSR and in particular Archie Gray, it all sounded pretty much how I thought at the time. Back in January, Gray negotiated a contract with Leeds until 2028, with the insurance of a release clause because he's obviously too good to spend the next four years playing in the Championship. (There's a status aspect to these clauses, I think. Imagine being a player who doesn't ask for one, because you don't think you're good enough to get signed by a Premier League club? Would Leeds even want to sign a player who doesn't have that self-confidence?) (And, these clauses remove some of the pretence. Once a Championship club has a bid over £20m from a Premier League club, everyone knows that player must be good enough to go and will want to go, and that his club will like the money. What's the point pretending otherwise? So this summer, for example, Georginio Rutter knew he couldn't go to Brighton for their first two bids; Leeds knew they couldn't keep him when their third hit the clause number; and all along everyone knew where they stood with the minimum of skullduggery.)
Anyway, Archie Gray's clause didn't mean he had to leave this summer, or that he was planning to leave this summer, and the club say they weren't planning to sell him this summer. But the offer from Tottenham came this summer and was too good for either club or player to ignore. Gray will be playing in the Europa League this season. Leeds United have a PSR profit that will help their transfer headroom now and in the future. They could shake hands on that.