The owner's losing interest
Quite why Radrizzani has chosen to give up the pretence at this point is hard to say. I wonder if, maybe, it's all got too much for him. By which I mean Twitter, specifically.
I'm often wary, and weary, of overmuch discussion of 'legacy'. It misvalues the here and now, as if a moment can only mean something when it's over. Perhaps it's a consequence of social media turning us into digital curators of our own lives, wondering how people will look at our Facebook albums of holiday photos forty years from now. But the answer is, they won't, so don't worry about that. The football equivalent feels equally nonsensical to me, everyone concerned about how a goal or a sending off will look in front of some future jury. It's more likely that, with impossibly large archives of football matches to watch, few people decades from now will be bothered enough to discover consensus about the first half of Stoke vs Blackburn in 2022 and let it influence anyone's legacy.
That said, it's a while since I saw anyone burning down a legacy so fast as Andrea Radrizzani this week, except maybe Peter Ridsdale, with whom he's always had too much in common. In what ought to be a warning to 49ers Enterprises, this week has been about Radrizzani going back on a deal.
It was obvious that Radrizzani loved the limelight at Leeds, and that owning the football club meant everyone else had to let him have it. Making a documentary and making sure there's plenty about him. Getting his name on the centenary plaque at Salem Chapel. Bringing the Championship trophy onto the pitch to present to the players. It was all kinda gross, but I didn't have much problem with it, because this is one of the things people buy football clubs for and it's better than sportswashing. He was owning the club and the club was doing good. Angling the mirror for a little of that reflecting glory was understandable, and fine if it meant him feeling better, and if he couldn't see everyone else rolling their eyes.
But this week, owning the club as it was relegated back to the Championship should have meant owning the mistakes. This was part of the deal. For letting his ego run rampant while Marcelo Bielsa brought glory to Leeds, Radrizzani had to be here when it fell apart. Instead, he was in Genoa, negotiating to buy Sampdoria, and he couldn't even muster a half-arsed apology to Leeds fans until Wednesday. On Thursday The Athletic reported that, as part of the negotiations for Sampdoria, Radrizzani had tried to use Elland Road as security for a £26m bank loan without telling the co-owners or his business associates, and that when challenged about this, he had told The Athletic: "what Aser Ventures does with its assets which includes several companies including Leeds United, Greenfield and Elland Road.. it’s none of your business."